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Definition of "personal" []

  • Of or relating to a particular person; private: "Like their personal lives, women's history is fragmented, interrupted” ( Elizabeth Janeway). (adjective)
  • Done, made, or performed in person: a personal appearance. (adjective)
  • Done to or for or directed toward a particular person: a personal favor. (adjective)
  • Concerning a particular person and his or her private business, interests, or activities; intimate: I have something personal to tell you. (adjective)
  • Aimed pointedly at the most intimate aspects of a person, especially in a critical or hostile manner: an uncalled-for, highly personal remark. (adjective)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Use "personal" in a sentence
  • "It is unclear, however, whether this way of distinguishing between personal and moral integrity captures ordinary use of the term ˜personal integrity™."
  • "VIEW FAVORITES yahooBuzzArticleHeadline = 'Latest Iraqi war casualty -- conservative belief in "personal responsibility"'; yahooBuzzArticleSummary = 'To the list of conservative principles which are being tossed aside like yesterday’s trash in order to defend George Bush, let us add the ostensible virtue of “personal responsibility."
  • "It is because these things -- those which "avail for highest purposes" -- make man personal and mark him off, broadly speaking, from the lower, sub-human life out of which he has emerged, that we believe in the permanence of human personality, of the spiritual element in man, in the survival of the soul _as individual and personal_, and not merely as "part of the eternal Being of God.""