first person

American  

[furst pur-suhn] / ˈfɜrst ˈpɜr sən /

noun

1. the grammatical person used by a speaker in statements referring to the speaker's own self first person singular or to a group including the speaker first person plural.

2. a pronoun or verb form in the first person, as I or am in English, or a set of such forms.

3. a literary style in which the narrative is told from the perspective of a narrator speaking directly.

   The story is written in the first person.

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first person British  

noun

1. a grammatical category of pronouns and verbs used by the speaker to refer to or talk about himself or herself, either alone ( first person singular ) or together with others ( first person plural )

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Etymology

Origin of first person

First recorded in 1935–40

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

first person

I took a course from her at UCLA, and she was the first person to tell me where to buy a Roy DeCarava book.

From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 11, 2026

"I'm the first person in my family to enter a doctoral programme and even with all the studying I've done, I still can't make it," she told Reuters.

From BBC ● Oct. 29, 2026

The first person in line arrived Thursday night at 6:30 p.m.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 23, 2026

Last month, Christa Pike, a 50-year-old death row inmate, became the first person to survive a lethal injection attempt -- and is now recovering in a prison hospital.

From Barron's ● Oct. 19, 2026

Pua is the first person I’ve hung out with since school started in August.

From "Clairboyance" by Kristiana Kahakauwila

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