impersonal

• POS: Adjective
• HYPHEN: im=per=son=al

CIDE DICTIONARY

impersonal, a. [L. impersonalis; pref. im- not + personalis personal: cf. F. impersonnel. See Personal.].

 Not personal; not representing a person; not having personality.  [1913 Webster]
"An almighty but impersonal power, called Fate."  [1913 Webster]

Impersonal verb (Gram.), a verb used with an indeterminate subject, commonly, in English, with the impersonal pronoun it; as, it rains; it snows; methinks (it seems to me). Many verbs which are not strictly impersonal are often used impersonally; as, it goes well with him.

impersonal, n. 

 That which wants personality;  [1913 Webster]

OXFORD DICTIONARY

impersonal, adj.
1 having no personality.
2 having no personal feeling or reference.
3 Gram. a (of a verb) used only with a formal subject (usu. it) and expressing an action not attributable to a definite subject (e.g. it is snowing). b (of a pronoun) = INDEFINITE.

Derivative

impersonality n. impersonally adv.

Etymology

LL impersonalis (as IN-(1), PERSONAL)

THESAURUS

impersonal

Olympian, abstract, aloof, backward, bashful, blank, candid, chilled, chilly, cold, cold-blooded, colorless, constrained, conventionalized, cool, detached, discreet, disinterested, dispassionate, distant, emotionless, equal, equitable, evenhanded, expressionless, external, extraneous, extraorganismal, extrinsic, fair, forbidding, foreign, formal, formalist, formalistic, formulary, frigid, frosty, guarded, icy, impartial, impassive, inaccessible, indifferent, introverted, just, legalistic, lofty, matter-of-fact, mechanical, modest, neutral, nominal, nonsubjective, objective, offish, outlying, outside, outward, pedantic, poker-faced, prim, remote, removed, repressed, reserved, restrained, reticent, retiring, rigid, selfless, shrinking, standoff, standoffish, stiff, strait-laced, stuffy, stylized, subdued, superficial, suppressed, surface, unaffable, unapproachable, unbiased, uncolored, uncongenial, undazzled, undemonstrative, unexpansive, unfriendly, ungenial, unimpassioned, uninfluenced, unjaundiced, unprejudiced, unprepossessed, unselfish, unswayed, withdrawn, wooden

ROGET THESAURUS

impersonal

Generality

N generality, generalization, universality, catholicity, catholicism, miscellany, miscellaneousness, dragnet, common run, worldwideness, everyone, everybody, all hands, all the world and his wife, anybody, N or M, all sorts, prevalence, run, general, generic, collective, broad, comprehensive, sweeping, encyclopedical, widespread, universal, catholic, catholical, common, worldwide, ecumenical, oecumenical, transcendental, prevalent, prevailing, rife, epidemic, besetting, all over, covered with, Pan-American, Anglican, Pan-Hellenic, Pan-Germanic, slavic, panharmonic, every, all, unspecified, impersonal, customary, whatever, whatsoever, to a man, one and all, generally, always, for better for worse, in general, generally speaking, speaking generally, for the most part, in the long run.

Materiality

N materiality, materialness, corporeity, corporality, substantiality, substantialness, flesh and blood, plenum, physical condition, matter, body, substance, brute matter, stuff, element, principle, parenchyma, material, substratum, hyle, corpus, pabulum, frame, object, article, thing, something, still life, stocks and stones, materials, physics, somatology, somatics, natural philosophy, experimental philosophy, physicism, physical science, philosophie positive, materialism, materialist, physicist, somatism, somatist, material, bodily, corporeal, corporal, physical, somatic, somatoscopic, sensible, tangible, ponderable, palpable, substantial, objective, impersonal, nonsubjective, neuter, unspiritual, materialistic.