persona

American  

[per-soh-nuh] / pərˈsoʊ nə /

noun

• personae,
  plural
• personas
  plural

1. a person.

2. personae, the characters in a play, novel, etc.

3. the narrator of or a character in a literary work, sometimes identified with the author.

4. (in the psychology of C. G. Jung) the mask or façade presented to satisfy the demands of the situation or the environment and not representing the inner personality of the individual; the public personality (contrasted with anima).

5. a person's perceived or evident personality, as that of a well-known official, actor, or celebrity; personal image; public role.

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persona British  

/ pɜːˈsəʊnə /

noun

1. (often plural) a character in a play, novel, etc

2. an assumed identity or character

3. (in Jungian psychology) the mechanism that conceals a person's true thoughts and feelings, esp in his adaptation to the outside world

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Usage

What does persona mean? A persona is the image or personality that a person presents in public or in a specific setting—as opposed to their true self. The word is especially used in the phrase public persona, referring to the personality that a person presents in public and that they are known for by most people. The term is usually used in reference to public figures, such as politicians and celebrities, to contrast with “what they’re really like.”For example, someone’s public persona might be outgoing and social, while their true personality is shy and reserved. Of course, it’s also possible that someone’s public persona matches their true personality. In psychology, the word persona refers to the identity that a person takes on to adapt to the outside world or to a certain situation—their “mask” or facade. In literature, persona refers to a character in a story, especially the narrator. Much less commonly, persona can simply refer to a person. The Latin term persona appears in the phrase persona non grata, referring to a person who is not welcome. The correct plural of persona can be personas or personae. (The plural ending -ae is used in other formal plurals of Latin-derived words, such as antennae—the plural of antenna.)Example: In public, Ahmad’s persona is that of a confident leader, but in private he’s timid and kind of insecure.

Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• personae
  plural
• personas
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of persona

First recorded in 1905–10, persona is from the Latin word persōna mask, character. See person

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Explanation

Your persona is the public image you present to the world. When T.S. Eliot wrote in "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" about preparing "a face to meet the faces that you meet," he had the persona in mind. In ancient Latin the word persona meant "mask." The word also can refer to a character played by an actor. While a persona is not considered a lie or a falsehood, its meaning implies that it is only part of the truth. Like all masks, there is "real" person beneath. Often a performer will take on a persona to express certain parts of himself: the rapper Eminem also goes by the name Slim Shady to express his darker self.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

persona personae personas

Fellow traitor Maya Jama also sailed all the way to the final with her cool-as-a-cucumber persona making her a traitor to be reckoned with.

From BBC ● Nov. 1, 2026

The limitations are frustrating, Chavez Camacho said, especially “si una persona no sabe leer” — if a person can’t read.

From Salon ● Oct. 31, 2026

Johnston pointed to Bukele's political persona, which revolves around his iron-fisted crackdown on organized crime in his Cental American country.

From Barron's ● Oct. 30, 2026

“He’s a guy who knows how to win a purple district,” Germana had told me, and he’s calibrated his public persona and strategy around that.

From Slate ● Oct. 29, 2026

After I’d been meeting with Professor Steinberg for a month, I wrote an essay comparing Edmund Burke with Publius, the persona under which James Madison, Alexander Hamilton and John Jay had written The Federalist Papers.

From "Educated" by Tara Westover

The authors also explore the notion of “performative identity,” in which both sides of a conversation inevitably enact certain personae.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 19, 2026

In this unfiltered, unvarnished portrait of the artist, Sheff succeeds magnificently in bringing one of popular music’s most divisive and misunderstood personae to life.

From Salon ● Mar. 28, 2025

The fantasy that every bad man would get his due, with the violent ones in jail and the manipulative ones made personae non grata, has not played out.

From Slate ● May 29, 2024

We all live in a world of social media, after all; we constantly risk warping ourselves, changing our personae as circumstances shift, infecting our children with fears and dreams that aren’t their own.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 5, 2023

In the case of marrying, the dramatis personae include the person being married and the person doing the marrying.

From "The Sense of Style" by Steven Pinker

Initially the two personas were separate; Alexander’s shocking success blurred their distinctions.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 2, 2026

He had a number of different personas during his career including Pac, Adrian Neville and "The Man that Gravity Forgot".

From BBC ● Sep. 28, 2026

We all know that social-media personas can be misleading.

From MarketWatch ● Sep. 25, 2026

Millions of us toggle so frequently between our real lives and the well-curated fantasyland of our social media personas that it’s scrambled our neural pathways.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 24, 2026

For those few months in sixth grade, Kim and I shed our good-girl personas.

From "If I Stay" by Gayle Forman

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Related Words

• character
• identity
• personality

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