Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Impersonal |
ImpersonalAdjective1. Not relating to or responsive to individual persons; "an impersonal corporation"; "an impersonal remark". 2. Having no personal preference; "impersonal criticism"; "a neutral observer". Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "impersonal" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1841. (references) |
Etymology: Impersonal \Im*per"son*al\, adjective. [Latin impersonalis; pref. im- not + personalis personal: compare to French impersonnel. See Personal.]. (references) |
Synonym: ImpersonalSynonym: neutral (adj). (additional references) |
| Antonym: personal (adj). (additional references) |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Generality | Every, all; unspecified, impersonal. |
MATERIALITY | Objective, impersonal, nonsubjective, neuter, unspiritual, materialistic. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
Crosswords: Impersonal |
| English words defined with "impersonal": cold ♦ depersonalise, depersonalize ♦ Impersonal verb, Impersonality, impersonally, It ♦ objectify ♦ Unipersonal. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "impersonal": Hot Beef Injection ♦ Real Programmers Don't Use Pascal. (references) |
| Non-English Usage: "Impersonal" is also a word in the following languages with English translations in parentheses. Papiamen (impersonal), Romanian (impersonal, impersonally), Spanish (impersonal). |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | But I decided checks are just so impersonal so happy birthday, Richard (Caroline in the City; writing credit: Angela Carneiro) I decided impersonal was more you. (Caroline in the City; writing credit: Angela Carneiro) | |
Movie/TV Titles | Impersonal Impression (2002) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title |
Books |
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Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
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| "Feet downstairs" by Philip Jackson Commentary: "Another simple shot. empty. good for text, i've not thought of a use for it yet. Capture soe idea of movement, or travel in a slightly impersonal way." |
Source: photographs selected by the editor, with permission from the photographers. |
| Title | Author | Quote |
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man | Joyce, James | So timeless seemed the grey warm air, so fluid and impersonal his own mood, that all ages were as one to him. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Business | This new trend, of the impersonal businessman/consumer, has changed some of the business style, but does not yet represent the dominant practice. (references) | |
Economic History | Uae | A new trend of impersonal businessman/consumer has changed some of the business style. (references) |
Travel | Thailand | Business relationships in Thailand are not as formal as those found in Japan, China, Korea or the Middle East, but neither are they as relaxed and impersonal as is common in the West . Many business relationships have their foundations in personal relationships developed within the social circles of family, friends, classmates and office colleagues . Although Thailand is a relatively open and friendly society, it is advisable to approach potential business contacts with a prior introduction or personal reference . Thais will be more receptive if you arrive with an introduction or letter from a known government official or business contact . Using the Commercial Service's Gold Key Program is also an effective way to gain access to the Thai business community. (references) |
Women | Yemen | The NWC's 7-member legal committee, consisting of lawyers, women's rights experts, and Islamic scholars, found that 10 laws contained discriminatory language or "negligence with respect to women" and that 15 others were ambiguous because the laws used the masculine impersonal pronoun when the statutes governed women as well as men. (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| "Impersonal" is generally used as an adjective (general or positive) -- approximately 98.93% of the time. "Impersonal" is used about 469 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Adjective (general or positive) | 98.93% | 464 | 12,682 |
| Noun (proper) | 0.85% | 4 | 175,879 |
| Unclassified Items | 0.21% | 1 | 339,140 |
| Total | 100.00% | 469 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expressions using "impersonal": impersonal account ♦ impersonal neutral ♦ Impersonal verb. Additional references. | |
| Hypenated Usage | |
Ending with "impersonal": personal-impersonal. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day |
impersonal | 5 |
impersonal life | 5 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Language | Translations for "impersonal"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Albanian | i papërcaktuar (general, indefinite, indeterminate, neutral, uncertain, undetermined), pavetor, objektiv (aim, Mark, object glass, objective, target), njëvetor, jo i përveçëm. (various references) | |
Arabic | مبنى للمجهول, لا شخصي. (various references) | |
Bulgarian | хладен (chill, chilly, cold, cool, crisp, inapproachable, lukewarm, passionless, tepid, unemotional, unmoved, wintry), общ (aggregate, blanket, broad, collective, common, communal, corporate, general, generic, global, joint, omnibus, overall, solid, total, wide), обективен (clinical, material, objective, outer), безучастен (cool, indifferent, passive, unconcerned, unimpressed, vacant), безличен (faceless, nondurable, null), безпристрастен (clinical, detached, dispassionate, equitable, even, even handed, fair, immovable, impartial, indifferent, judicial, non-partisan, objective, unbiased, unprejudiced). (various references) | |
Chinese | 客观 (objective). (various references) | |
Czech | neosobní (noncommittal). (various references) | |
Danish | ikke-personlige konti (impersonal account), skønsmæssigt fastsat skat (taxes both personal and impersonal), okularmikrometer (impersonal micrometer), minimalskat (taxes both personal and impersonal). (various references) | |
Dutch | onpersoonlýk. (various references) | |
Farsi | فاقدشخصیت , غیرشخصی , بی فاعل . (various references) | |
Finnish | persoonaton. (various references) | |
French | impersonnel. (various references) | |
German | unpersönlich (aloof, distant, impersonally). (various references) | |
Greek | απρόσωποσ, απρόσωπος. (various references) | |
Hebrew | לא אישי. (various references) | |
Hungarian | személytelen. (various references) | |
Italian | impersonale (banal). (various references) | |
Japanese Kanji | 非人間的 (inhuman), 没個性的 . (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | ひにんげんてき (inhuman), ぼつこせいてき. (various references) | |
Korean | 비개인. (various references) | |
Manx | neuphersoonagh, gyn persoonaght. (various references) | |
Norwegian | upersonlig. (various references) | |
Papiamen | impersonal. (various references) | |
Pig Latin | impersonalay.(various references) | |
Portuguese | impessoal. (various references) | |
Romanian | impersonal (impersonally), rece (apathetically, bleak, chill, chilly, cold, cold blooded, cold-hearted, coldly, cool, crisp, damp, dank, distant, freezingly, frigid, frosty, glacial, hard-hearted, icily, icy, immovable, inhuman, nippy, reserved, snappy, stale, stiff, stony, wintery, wintry), fãrã originalitate, dezinteresat (detached, disinterested, unselfish). (various references) | |
Russian | безличный (egoless). (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | neličan, bezličan (faceless). (various references) | |
Spanish | impersonal. (various references) | |
Swedish | opersonlig. (various references) | |
Turkish | kişisiz, kişisel olmayan, kişiliksiz, şahsi olmayan. (various references) | |
Ukrainian | неупереджений (candid, objective, open, open minded, uninfluenced, unprejudiced), безликий. (various references) | |
Vietnamese | nói trống, không nói về riêng ai, không liên quan đến riêng ai, không ám chỉ riêng ai. (various references) | |
Welsh | amhersonol. (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "impersonal": impersonalities, impersonality, impersonalization, impersonalizations, impersonalize, impersonalized, impersonalizes, impersonalizing, impersonally. (additional references) | |
| |
"Impersonal" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: apersonal, imppersonal, interzonal. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "impersonal" (pronounced i'mper"sunul) |
| 7 | -p er" s u n u l | interpersonal, personal. |
| 5 | -s u n u l | Arsenal, medicinal. |
| 4 | -u n u l | abdominal, aberrational, aboriginal, additional, attitudinal, binational, biphenyl, cantonal, Cardinal, coeducational, collisional, compositional, computational, concessional, conditional, confessional, conformational, confrontational, congregational, congressional, connotational, constitutional, conventional, conversational, correctional, criminal, delusional, denominational, depositional, devotional, diagonal, dimensional, directional, divisional, doctrinal, duodenal, dysfunctional, educational, emotional, erosional, exceptional, factional, fictional, fluxional, foundational, fractional, functional, gastrointestinal, generational, gravitational, hexagonal, improvisational, subliminal, superregional, supranational, terminal, informational, inspirational, institutional, instructional, intentional, intergenerational, international, intestinal, investigational, Invitational, irrational, jurisdictional, juvenile, latitudinal, longitudinal, luminal, marginal, motivational, multinational, national, navigational, nominal, noncriminal, nonprofessional, nontraditional, nutritional, obsessional, occasional, occupational, octagonal, operational, optional, organizational, original, phenomenal, polygonal, processional, professional, promotional, proportional, provisional, rational, recreational, regional, relational, representational, retinal, rotational, seasonal, sectional, seminal, sensational, sentinel, situational, traditional, transformational, transitional, transnational, unconditional, unconstitutional, unconventional, unemotional, unintentional, unprofessional, untraditional, virginal, vocational. |
| 3 | -n u l | infernal, adrenal, anal, annal, annul, atonal, autumnal, carnal, channel, Colonel, communal, cornel, Darnel, departmental, diurnal, empanel, eternal, external, faunal, fennel, final, flannel, fraternal, funnel, hormonal, Hymnal, impanel, spinal, internal, journal, kennel, kernel, maternal, monoclonal, monsoonal, morainal, nocturnal, panel, paternal, penal, polyvinyl, renal, semifinal, shrapnel, signal, tonal, tribunal, tunnel, vaginal, venal, vernal, Vinal, vinyl. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
Direct Anagrams: prolamines. | |
| Words within the letters "a-e-i-l-m-n-o-p-r-s" | |
-1 letter: almonries, normalise, prolamine, prolamins. | |
-2 letters: ailerons, alienors, almoners, episomal, impalers, impanels, impearls, implores, laminose, lampions, lempiras, maniples, manropes, marlines, meropias, minerals, misenrol, mislearn, moraines, moralise, neoplasm, opalines, pelorian, pelorias, personal, pleonasm, polarise, pralines, proemial, prolamin, prolines, promines, psoralen, rampions, rampoles, romaines, romanise, semolina. | |
-3 letters: aileron, alienor, aliners, almners, almoner, alpines, anisole, anomies, emporia. | |
| Words containing the letters "a-e-i-l-m-n-o-p-r-s" | |
+1 letter: complainers, palindromes, personalism, trampolines. | |
+2 letters: impersonally, lampooneries, pelargoniums, personalisms, trampoliners. | |
+3 letters: ceruloplasmin, compressional, impersonality, impersonalize, imponderables, metropolitans, semiporcelain, sportsmanlike. | |
+4 letters: ceruloplasmins, impersonalized, impersonalizes, impressionable, operationalism, perambulations, polymerisation, recompilations, semiporcelains, spermatogonial, supernormality. | |
+5 letters: chlorpromazines, complementaries, impersonalities, impersonalizing, interparoxysmal, operationalisms, overcompliances, paranormalities, polymerisations, polymerizations, postmillenarian, professionalism, reimplantations, uncompromisable, unsportsmanlike. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Modern | 5. Usage: Commercial 6. Images: Digital Art 7. Quotations: Fiction 8. Quotations: Non-fiction | 9. Usage Frequency 10. Expressions 11. Expressions: Internet 12. Translations: Modern | 13. Derivations 14. Rhymes 15. Anagrams 16. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
