Word.ws English Dictionary

impersonal

/ɪmˈpɜː.sn̩.ɫ̩/US/ɪmˈpɝsənəl/

impersonal adjective: not personal; not representing a person; not having personality.

Adjective

impersonal (comparative more impersonal, superlative most impersonal)

  1. Not personal; not representing a person; not having personality.
    • The great tragedians of Greece reveal to us their people's exquisite sense of beauty, and their faith in an awful, an almighty, but an impersonal power, called Fate1853, James Stephen, On Desultory and Systematic Reading: A Lecture
  2. Lacking warmth or emotion; cold.
    • She sounded impersonal as she gave her report of the Nazi death camps.
    • And now it appeared that there was a mysterious Queen clothed by rumour with dread and wonderful attributes, and commonly known by the impersonal, but, to my mind, rather awesome title of She.1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, →OCLC
  3. Not having a subject, or having a third person pronoun without an antecedent.
    • The verb “rain” is impersonal in sentences like “It’s raining.”

Noun

impersonal (plural impersonals)

  1. An impersonal word or construct.

impersonal meaning in Hindi, Urdu, Bengali and Malayalam

impersonal in Hindi

impersonal, unauthored
अपौरुषेय apauruṣey

impersonal in Urdu

غیرشخصی, خشک مزاج, روکھا

impersonal in Bengali

নৈর্ব্যক্তিক, অব্যক্তিগত

impersonal in Malayalam

അമൂർത്തമായ, വ്യക്തിതാത്പര്യമില്ലാത്ത, വ്യക്തിത്വമില്ലാത്ത, പദാർത്ഥനിഷ്ഠമായ
More languagesFewer languages
impersonal in Kannada
ಒಬ್ಬನ ಕುರಿತಲ್ಲದ, ಒಬ್ಬನಾಗಿಲ್ಲದ, ವೈಯಕ್ತಿಕವಲ್ಲದ, ವ್ಯಕ್ತಿಗತವಲ್ಲದ

Examples of impersonal in a sentence

  • I prefer missionary 'cause hitting it from the back feels so impersonal.
  • The service in that restaurant was brisk and impersonal.
  • Bath salts seemed ordinary, a record or book-token impersonal, a pot-plant unimaginative.

All 30 example sentences with impersonal

Synonyms of impersonal

Forms of impersonal

Adjective
comparativemore impersonal
superlativemost impersonal
Noun
pluralimpersonals

Origin of impersonal

From French impersonnel, from Latin impersōnālis, from im- (“not”) + persōnālis (“personal”), equivalent to im- + personal.

Words formed from impersonal

Phrases with impersonal

Questions about impersonal

What does impersonal mean?
Impersonal means not personal; not representing a person; not having personality.
What is impersonal in Hindi?
Impersonal in Hindi is अपौरुषेय (apauruṣey). See Impersonal meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is impersonal?
Impersonal can be an adjective or a noun.
How do you pronounce impersonal?
Impersonal is pronounced /ɪmˈpɝsənəl/ (US).

Words near impersonal in the dictionary

  1. imperscrutable
  2. imperseverant
  3. impersistence
  4. impersistent
  5. impersonable
  6. impersonal
  7. impersonal passive
  8. impersonal passives
  9. impersonal subject
  10. impersonal subjects
  11. impersonal verb

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: impersonal (page history and authors); अपौरुषेय (Hindi) (page history and authors); impersonal (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); Impersonal (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); impersonal (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); impersonal (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “impersonal.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/impersonal. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.