personage
Americannoun
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personages
plural
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a person of distinction or importance.
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any person.
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a character in a play, story, etc.
noun
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an important or distinguished person
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another word for person
a strange personage
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rare a figure in literature, history, etc
Synonym Usage
See person.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of personage
First recorded in 1425–75; late Middle English: “body or image (statue, portrait) of a person” (from Old French ), from Medieval Latin persōnāgium. See person, -age
Explanation
In history and literature, a personage is an important person, a notable figure whose actions and decisions have a major impact on events. The word personage comes from the Latin persona, meaning "mask" or "character." In fact, a character in a play is sometimes referred to as a personage. Outside of theater, the word typically refers to someone of great significance or distinction, such as a monarch, a president, or an influential cultural leader with impressive achievements or clout. On the other hand, personage can also be used more broadly to refer to any person, important or not.
Vocabulary lists containing personage
Excerpt from "A Midsummer Night's Dream"
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Hick
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
And always there is Mama, who haunted her life and haunts her memoir, though Ms. Minnelli wants it understood that she’s her own personage.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 6, 2026
Musk’s unrestrained, all-access scourge through the government has led pundits like Nate Silver to compare him to a ‘great man’ of history — that mythic personage whose unhindered agency pushes history forward.
From Salon ● Mar. 28, 2025
Security Council’s five permanent members, only the United States, in the personage of President Joe Biden, spoke.
From Seattle Times ● Sep. 26, 2023
“She is of a generation that went through that process, and she was an unusual personage in that generation.”
From New York Times ● Jul. 28, 2023
"Victor!" she calls out, and then in a quieter voice she cues the men as if she does not want them to embarrass themselves by not knowing who this important personage is.
From "How the García Girls Lost Their Accents" by Julia Alvarez
Much will come out in the exchanges between the accidental roommates that alters our perceptions of both, as well as our view of those offstage personages, living and dead.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 28, 2026
We chronicle, explicate, elucidate and constantly “re-adjudicate” historical events and personages.
From Salon ● Jul. 30, 2024
Nesbit and Beattie alone are still with us, but it seems like only six months ago, to me at least, when all these personages were striding the planet.
From New York Times ● Feb. 13, 2023
Marx once wrote that great personages and events appear twice in history: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 22, 2022
Indeed, some of the personages were Jewish, and this fact alone should demonstrate how nonsensical is much of what has been said about his lordship.
From "The Remains of the Day" by Kazuo Ishiguro
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
