Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Of or relating to a particular person; private.
  • adjective Done, made, or performed in person.
  • adjective Done to or for or directed toward a particular person.
  • adjective Concerning a particular person and his or her private business, interests, or activities; intimate.
  • adjective Aimed pointedly at the most intimate aspects of a person, especially in a critical or hostile manner.
  • adjective Tending to make remarks, or be unduly questioning, about another's affairs.
  • adjective Of or relating to the body or physical being.
  • adjective Relating to or having the nature of a person or self-conscious being.
  • adjective Law Of or relating to the person.
  • adjective Grammar Indicating grammatical person.
  • noun A personal item or notice in a newspaper.
  • noun A column in a newspaper or magazine featuring personal notices.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Pertaining to a person or self-conscious being as distinct or distinguihshed from a thing; having personality, or the character of a person; self-conscious; belonging to men and women, or to superhuman intelligences, and not to animals or things: as, a personal God; the personal object of a verb.
  • Pertaining, relating, or peculiar to a person or self-consciious individual as distinct or distinguished from others or from the community; individual: as, not a public but a personal matter; personal interests; personal property, etc.
  • Proper or directly applicable to a specific person or individual, or to his character, conduct, etc.; pointed, directed, or specifically applicable or applied, especially in a disparaging or offensive sense or manner, to some particular individual (either one's self or another): as, a personal paragraph; personal abuse; personal remarkes.
  • Relating to one's self, or one's own experiences: as, personal reminiscences.
  • Done, effected, or made in person, and not by deputy or representative: as, a personal appearance; a personal interview; personal service of a summons; personal application is necessary.
  • Persent in person.
  • Of or pertaining to the person or bodily form; belonging to the face or figure; corporeal: as personal beauty.
  • In grammar, denoting or pointing to the person; expressing the distinctions of the three persons: as, a personal pronoun; a personal verb.
  • An action for the recovery of money or specific chattles.
  • Any action other than one for the recovery of land.
  • Originally called personal because the remedy for deprivation was to recover damages enforceable against the person of the defendant. In the law of England the distinction between real and personal property is very nearly the same as the distinction between heritable and movable property in the law of Scotland.
  • Those who succeed to property and rights by virtue of a personal relation, or as deemed to represent in law the person.
  • In the law of real property, such a servitude as has not been constituted for the advantage of the estate, but has been granted on another's estate, only for the use of a person.
  • noun In law, any movable thing, either living or dead; a movable.
  • noun A short notice or paragraph in a newspaper referring to some person or persons.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Law) A movable; a chattel.
  • adjective Pertaining to human beings as distinct from things.
  • adjective Of or pertaining to a particular person; relating to, or affecting, an individual, or each of many individuals; peculiar or proper to private concerns; not public or general
  • adjective Pertaining to the external or bodily appearance; corporeal.
  • adjective Done in person; without the intervention of another.
  • adjective Relating to an individual, his character, conduct, motives, or private affairs, in an invidious and offensive manner.
  • adjective (Gram.) Denoting person.
  • adjective (Law) a suit or action by which a man claims a debt or personal duty, or damages in lieu of it; or wherein he claims satisfaction in damages for an injury to his person or property, or the specific recovery of goods or chattels; -- opposed to real action.
  • adjective (Astron.) See under Equation.
  • adjective (Law) movables; chattels; -- opposed to real estate or property. It usually consists of things temporary and movable, including all subjects of property not of a freehold nature.
  • adjective (Metaph.) the persistent and continuous unity of the individual person, which is attested by consciousness.
  • adjective (Gram.) one of the pronouns I, thou, he, she, it, and their plurals.
  • adjective (Law) the executors or administrators of a person deceased.
  • adjective rights appertaining to the person.
  • adjective See under Tithe.
  • adjective (Gram.) a verb which is modified or inflected to correspond with the three persons.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Pertaining to human beings as distinct from things.
  • adjective Of or pertaining to a particular person; relating to, or affecting, an individual, or each of many individuals; peculiar or proper to private concerns; not public or general
  • adjective Pertaining to the external or bodily appearance; corporeal; as, personal charms.
  • adjective Done in person; without the intervention of another.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English personal, personele, from Anglo-Norman personel, personal, personell, Old French personal, personel, from Late Latin persōnālis, equivalent to person +‎ -al.

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Examples

  • It is unclear, however, whether this way of distinguishing between personal and moral integrity captures ordinary use of the term ˜personal integrity™.

    Integrity Cox, Damian 2008

  • VIEW FAVORITES yahooBuzzArticleHeadline = 'Latest Iraqi war casualty -- conservative belief in "personal responsibility"'; yahooBuzzArticleSummary = 'To the list of conservative principles which are being tossed aside like yesterday’s trash in order to defend George Bush, let us add the ostensible virtue of “personal responsibility.

    OpEdNews - Quicklink: Latest Iraqi war casualty -- conservative belief in "personal responsibility" 2006

  • I'm going to leave her in the personal care -- the _personal_ care, you understand me, of every decent man in Crawling Water.

    Hidden Gold Wilder Anthony

  • Had he meant the virtues or moral qualities, he would have spoken plainer, as was his wont; but here, where the subject is the personal beauty, the charms of Theodote, it is more in the Socratic vein that he refers to other _personal_ charms, which engage his thoughts night and day, and keep him at home.

    Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 Various

  • _ -- After the 10th instant all persons will be required to prove their identity by the personal document (_cédula personal_), together with the pass above-mentioned, and neither the amnesty passes already granted nor any other document will have any legal validity.

    The Philippine Islands John Foreman

  • It is because these things -- those which "avail for highest purposes" -- make man personal and mark him off, broadly speaking, from the lower, sub-human life out of which he has emerged, that we believe in the permanence of human personality, of the spiritual element in man, in the survival of the soul _as individual and personal_, and not merely as "part of the eternal Being of God."

    Problems of Immanence: studies critical and constructive Joseph Warschauer

  • Travellers are allowed to take with them all that is necessary _for their own personal use, as travellers_, without paying any duty; but articles that are intended for sale as merchandise, or those which, though intended for the traveller's own use, are not strictly _personal_, are liable to pay duty.

    Rollo in Switzerland Jacob Abbott 1841

  • I might have freely conceded that savages decorate themselves for the sake of gaining an advantage in courtship without thereby in the least yielding the main thesis of this chapter, which is that the admiration of personal beauty is not one of the motives which induce a savage to marry a particular girl or man; for most of the "decorations" described in the preceding pages are not elements of _personal_ beauty at all, but are either external appendages to that beauty, or mutilations of it.

    Primitive Love and Love-Stories Henry Theophilus Finck 1890

  • _personal experience_ however is not always the best source material to base a conclusion on, because sometimes peoples personal experiences are different.

    TrekWeb - Browse, Bicker, and Boldly Go (Star Trek) 2009

  • _personal experience_ however is not always the best source material to base a conclusion on, because sometimes peoples personal experiences are different.

    TrekWeb - Browse, Bicker, and Boldly Go (Star Trek) 2009

Comments

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  • from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia: pertaining to a person or self-conscious being...

    Name a self-conscious being that isn't a person.

    January 26, 2016