impersonal

[ im-pur-suh-nl ]
See synonyms for impersonal on Thesaurus.com
adjective
  1. not personal; without reference or connection to a particular person: an impersonal remark.

  2. having no personality; devoid of human character or traits: an impersonal deity.

  1. lacking human emotion or warmth: an impersonal manner.

  2. Grammar.

    • (of a verb) having only third person singular forms and rarely if ever accompanied by an expressed subject, as Latin pluit “it is raining,” or regularly accompanied by an empty subject word, as English to rain in It is raining.

    • (of a pronoun or pronominal reference) indefinite, as French on “one.”

noun
  1. Grammar. an impersonal verb or pronoun.

Origin of impersonal

1
From the Late Latin word impersōnālis, dating back to 1510–20. See im-2, personal

Other words from impersonal

  • im·per·son·al·ly, adverb
  • su·per·im·per·son·al, adjective
  • su·per·im·per·son·al·ly, adverb

Words Nearby impersonal

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use impersonal in a sentence

  • Doubt, suspicion, anger clouded vision; pain routed the impersonal conception.

    The Wave | Algernon Blackwood
  • In France these reports would have been impersonal messages arriving from afar.

  • As it is an impersonal, artificial thing, a corporation cannot possibly commit a wrong or tort like a natural person.

  • He noticed them vacantly and took a curious impersonal interest in the two dim figures standing close together outside the window.

    Winston of the Prairie | Harold Bindloss
  • I defy you to see or think of them and not smile with an infinite and intimate but quite impersonal pleasure.

    The Pocket R.L.S. | Robert Louis Stevenson

British Dictionary definitions for impersonal

impersonal

/ (ɪmˈpɜːsənəl) /


adjective
  1. without reference to any individual person; objective: an impersonal assessment

  2. devoid of human warmth or sympathy; cold: an impersonal manner

  1. not having human characteristics: an impersonal God

  2. grammar (of a verb) having no logical subject. Usually in English the pronoun it is used in such cases as a grammatical subject, as for example in It is raining

  3. grammar (of a pronoun) not denoting a person

Derived forms of impersonal

  • impersonality, noun
  • impersonally, adverb

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012