Person vs Idol - What's the difference?
person | idol |
An individual; usually a human being.
* 1784 , William Jones, The Description and Use of a New Portable Orrery, &c. ,
* , chapter=7
, title= # A character or part, as in a play; a specific kind or manifestation of individual character, whether in real life, or in literary or dramatic representation; an assumed character.
#* Francis Bacon
#* Jeremy Taylor
#* Milton
#* South
# (Christianity) Any one of the three hypostases of the Holy Trinity: the Father, Son, or Holy Spirit.
#* Book of Common Prayer
# Any sentient or socially intelligent being.
# (in a compound noun or noun phrase) Someone who likes or has an affinity for (a specified thing).
The physical body of a being seen as distinct from the mind, character, etc.
*, III.1.2.iii:
* 1897 , (Henry James), (What Maisie Knew) :
* 1978 , (Lawrence Durrell), Livia , Faber & Faber 1992 (Avignon Quintet), p. 418:
* 2004 , (The New York Times) :
(legal) Any individual or formal organization with standing before the courts.
(legal) The human genitalia; specifically , the penis.
* 1824 , (
* 1972 , Evans v. Ewels'', ''Weekly Law Reports , vol. 1, p. 671 at pp. 674–675:
(grammar) A linguistic category used to distinguish between the speaker of an utterance and those to whom or about whom he is speaking. See grammatical person.
(biology) A shoot or bud of a plant; a polyp or zooid of the compound Hydrozoa, Anthozoa, etc.; also, an individual, in the narrowest sense, among the higher animals.
* Encyc. Brit.
(obsolete) To represent as a person; to personify; to impersonate.
(transitive, humorous, gender-neutral) To man.
* 2007 , Brian R. Brenner, Don't Throw This Away!: The Civil Engineering Life (page 40)
* 2008 , William Guy, Something Sensational (page 337)
A graven image or representation of anything that is revered, or believed to convey spiritual power.
*
, title=(The Celebrity), chapter=2
, passage=Sunning himself on the board steps, I saw for the first time Mr. Farquhar Fenelon Cooke. He was dressed out in broad gaiters and bright tweeds, like an English tourist, and his face might have belonged to Dagon, idol of the Philistines.}}
* 1911 (The Green Eye of the Little Yellow God) , :
A cultural icon, or especially popular person.
As nouns the difference between person and idol
is that person is an individual; usually a human being while idol is a graven image or representation of anything that is revered, or believed to convey spiritual power.As a verb person
is (obsolete|transitive) to represent as a person; to personify; to impersonate.person
English
Noun
(en-noun) (by suppletion)PREFACE
- THE favourable reception the Orrery has met with from Per?ons of the fir?t di?tinction, and from Gentlemen and Ladies in general, has induced me to add to it ?everal new improvements in order to give it a degree of Perfection; and di?tingui?h it from others; which by Piracy, or Imitation, may be introduced to the Public.
The Mirror and the Lamp, passage=“A very welcome, kind, useful present, that means to the parish. By the way, Hopkins, let this go no further. We don't want the tale running round that a rich person has arrived. Churchill, my dear fellow, we have such greedy sharks, and wolves in lamb's clothing. […]”}}
- his first appearance upon the stage in his new person of a sycophant or juggler
- No man can long put on a person and act a part.
- To bear rule, which was thy part / And person , hadst thou known thyself aright.
- How different is the same man from himself, as he sustains the person of a magistrate and that of a friend!
- three persons and one God
- Jack's always been a dog person , but I prefer cats.
- when the young ladies laughed at her for it, she replied, that it was not his person that she did embrace and reverence, but, with a Platonic love, the divine beauty of his soul.
- The Captain, inclining his military person , sat sideways to be closer and kinder […].
- At first blush it seemed that what was striking about him rested on the fact that his dress was exotic, his person foreign.
- Meanwhile, the dazed Sullivan, dressed like a bum with no identification on his person , is arrested and put to work on a brutal Southern chain gang.
- At common law a corporation or a trust is legally a person .
5 Geo. 4. c. 83, United Kingdom), section 4:
- [E]very Person wilfully, openly, lewdly, and obscenely exposing his Person in any Street, Road, or public Highway, or in the View thereof, or in any Place of public Resort, with Intent to insult any Female ... and being subsequently convicted of the Offence for which he or she shall have been so apprehended, shall be deemed a Rogue and Vagabond, within the true Intent and Meaning of this Act ...
- It seems to me that at any rate today, and indeed by 1824, the word "person " in connection with sexual matters had acquired a meaning of its own; a meaning which made it a synonym for "penis." It may be ... that it was the forerunner of Victorian gentility which prevented people calling a penis a penis. But however that may be I am satisfied in my own mind that it has now acquired an established meaning to the effect already stated. It is I venture to say, well known amongst those who practise in the courts that the word "person" is so used over and over again. It is the familiar synonym of that part of the body, and, as one of the reasons for my decision in this case, I would use that interpretation of what was prevailing in 1824 and what has become established in the 150 years since then.
- True corms, composed of united personae yet in sponges and corals occasionally by fusion of several originally distinct persons .
- (Haeckel)
Usage notes
In senses 1, 1.3, and 1.4, the plural is either persons'' or ''people'', with ''persons'' sounding more formal and ''people'' more colloquial. In senses 1.2, 2, 3, and 5 ''persons is the only plural.Synonyms
* See alsoDerived terms
* advance person * businessperson * cameraperson * chairperson * common person * draftsperson * first person * foreperson * houseperson * in person * layperson * newsperson * nonperson * ombudsperson * person-to-person * person-hour * person-year * persona * personable * personal * personate * personification * personify * personnel * repairperson * salesperson * second person * stick person * spokesperson * third person * unperson * VIPVerb
(en verb)- (Milton)
- We had hit the iceberg, and it was time to person the lifeboats.
- We went so far as to stop in a hotel on the way out of Speyer — to ask for directions — but the teenaged girl personing the desk there seemed to be such an idiot
Statistics
*idol
English
Noun
(en noun)- There's a one-eyed yellow idol to the north of Kathmandu, There's a little marble cross below the town; There's a broken-hearted woman tends the grave of Mad Carew, And the Yellow God forever gazes down.