Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A voice or character representing the speaker in a literary work.
- n. The characters in a dramatic or literary work.
- n. The role that one assumes or displays in public or society; one's public image or personality, as distinguished from the inner self.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. In biology, same as person, 8.
Wiktionary
- n. A social role.
- n. A character played by an actor.
- n. psychology The mask or appearance one presents to the world.
- n. computing A type of skin used in Mozilla software.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. (Biol.) Same as person, n., 8.
WordNet 3.0
- n. an actor's portrayal of someone in a play
- n. (Jungian psychology) a personal facade that one presents to the world
Etymologies
- From Latin persōna ("mask; character"), sometimes said to derive from personare ("to sound through") or from Etruscan 𐌘𐌄𐌓𐌔𐌖 (φersu). (Wiktionary)
- Latin persōna; see person. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“The first to use the term persona in a Trinitarian & christological context asserting in Adv.”
“They used, in Latin, the term persona, which means ˜role™ but which was also used by the grammarians to distinguish what we call ˜first person, second person and third person™ pronouns and verb-forms.”
“In a letter to a disciple, Sri Aurobindo wrote that "the very first step in getting out of the ignorance is to accept the fact that this outer consciousness is not one's soul, not oneself, not the real person, but only a temporary formation on the surface .... the outer personality is the person only in the sense of the Latin word persona which meant originally a mask.”
“Most notably, they created what they called a persona book, with color pictures and background information on people.”
“I think Isis has got something there - I've never felt discriminated against, but my 'persona' is very masculine.”
“Oh, how I loathed the old Donkey Kong ... but his new persona is quite cracking!”
“The persona is one of graciousness and grace under pressure.”
“Given that your persona is rough and tough (I gleaned this from your frequent mentions of having been "in the can"), it's not so shocking that you're an action movie fan; but it is surprising that you frequently go to bat for women, picking up on gender issues that many reviewers might miss, especially ones trying to gain a female audience while still impressing adolescent fanboys.”
The Huffington Post: Caroline Hagood: On Yippee Ki-Yay Moviegoer!, Movies, and Manhood
“When a persona is compromised by a portrayal that the public understands as emanating from the persona, then there is a right of publicity violation.”
“Or himself in one aspect, because his stand-up persona is another thing again.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘persona’.
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Loanwords
Since English is littered with loanwords, everything could conceivably end up here. But there is a distinct feeling associated with these.. maybe they're young additions to the English language; I ...
iceberg, fjord, firth, abbey, abyss, anorak, apartheid, assassin, avalanche, avocado, balaclava, banana and 104 more...
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AFET - diplomacy
broker a peace ac..., client state, deadlocked peace ..., embassy, freeze, goodwill ambassador, hinterland, interfere in dome..., intervene personally, maintain technica..., mediation, no business as usual and 670 more...
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macabre
words associated with the macabre & horror.
( open list, randomness )
more:
http://www.wordnik.co...ghastly, grisly, culeus, silly, gruesome, horrid, morbid, angelic, shocking, hideous, ghoulish, frightful and 135 more...
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Words build meanings from origins( et...
These come from gamma meditation ,I think.
discursive, exogenous, machinations, purportedly, sumptuous, congruity, cantankerous, incongruous, festoon, hessian, ratiocinative, stratigraphic and 2042 more...
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Emblematics
Sigility: avatars and representative figures. Types of symbols: academic, religious, abstract.
avatar, representative, emblem, sigil, semiotics, personification, totemic, creaturism, placeholder, iconolatry, egregore, thoughtform and 24 more...
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Favorites
disparage, partisan, cupidity, hokum, tussle, odious, dastardly, overture, plane, chronic, peering, peer and 328 more...
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the first list
an immense, grandiloquent list that loads like a thousand years sentence in stone. new words are in the other lists.
ridiculous, brummagem, predicament, sanctimonious, vapid, eschew, admonish, auspicious, capitulation, enumerate, lachrymose, tenet and 1648 more...
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eggplantia5's Words
scintillate, marvel, cranberry, oscillate, triumph, bamboozle, grimace, magical, book, hexagon, cipher, compendium and 2727 more...
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everythingecstatic's Words
cadence, frenetic, eloquence, paradigm, nocturne, elusive, effervescence, soliloquy, plethora, elision, aqueous, transcend and 166 more...
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gerwitz's Words
erudite, autodidactic, callipygian, ouroboros, zounds, fie, wabi, sabi, gedankenexperiment, zeitgeist, eliminativism, aether and 157 more...
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Misc. Words.
Words I like to use, words I like but may forget.
corrosion, astonish, solace, ferment, continuum, kinesthetic, permeate, repose, caprice, cardinal, discourse, surrender and 610 more...
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Hiroe's Words
facetious, bardic, twatwaffle, cattywampus, splendiferous, zomg, merf, fwaa, fnord, tortify, schwiz, blort and 225 more...
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Some Wednesday words
Just another arbitrary list of words that come up for me today, June 20 2007
tutelage, hobby horse, abracadabra, occipital, martinet, margarita, persona, cute, sharp, acute, confabulate, conspire and 97 more...
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lanklenmot's Words
ineluctable, prelapsarian, bien pensant, prospero, preternatural, gratifying, iconoclast, cineast, persnickety, tumescent, galvanize, pap and 887 more...
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Nullologue
nullologue, vaudeville, debauchery, debauched, libertine, nothing, dhadak, tz pf, nothingology, goodbyeology, sharmuta, manifesto and 866 more...
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_mark's list
Words I like!
( personal list, favorite words, randomness )psy, nanobot, success, smack, vibration, microcosmic, springgraph, marksmanship, estranged, homoerotic, flex, fiasco and 1687 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for persona.

pterodactyl *laughing* Apr 27, 2008
asativum As distinct from personb. Apr 27, 2008