Personal
adjectiveBelonging to, concerning, or done by a particular individual rather than anyone else.
How to spell personal
8 letters · 3 syllables
How to pronounce personal
Say the part in capitals loudest.
What does personal mean?
- adjectiveBelonging to, concerning, or done by a particular individual rather than anyone else.
Personal in a sentence
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She kept her personal diary locked in a desk drawer.
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He made a personal phone call during his lunch break.
Where does personal come from?
Language of origin: Latin
The word comes from the Latin personalis, meaning 'belonging to a person', which was built on persona. That noun originally meant the mask worn by an actor in a stage play, and from there it came to mean a character, a role, and eventually a human individual in their own right. English took the word in through Old French as 'personel' during the 1300s, and it settled into its modern spelling soon after. The single -al ending is the key spelling point: 'personal' (relating to a person) ends in -al, while the look-alike workplace word 'personnel' takes the French doubled -nn- and an -el ending, which is exactly why the two are so often mixed up.
How the word is built
- person (from Latin persona: a human individual)
- -al (adjective suffix meaning 'relating to')
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