Meaning

A person who has been stripped of rights, identity, or humanity..

Definitions by Sense

1. A person who has been stripped of rights, identity, or humanity.
2. (transitive) To strip (a person) of rights, identity, or humanity; to dehumanize.

Example Sentences

With his identity stolen, he became an unperson, unable to prove his existence to the government.

In accordance with the change in the party line, Stalin vanished from the play, disappearing even before Mr. Krushchev's denunciation at the 20th Congress of the Communist Party. Stalin became an “unperson,” in the terminology of George Orwell's “1984”.

Though Gao is classed as an unperson in China, which did not react officially yesterday, the award was forecast to cause widespread private joy there as the literary equivalent of the country winning the World Cup.

Unhappily, shortcomings here on the part of even a few schools provide a handle for the type of irresponsible generalization that recently labeled the lay professor on the Catholic campus "unwanted, unpaid, uncared for and unpersoned."

Could a decision in the clinic’s favor today mean that, in that future, the lab-gestated babies would be legally unpersoned, because the womb had been held to impart a worth the child did not have on its own?

Word Forms

• unpersons
• unpeople
• unpersoning
• unpersoned

Related Words

When Should You Use Unperson?

Use unperson when its meaning, tone and grammar fit the full sentence. A synonym is not always a direct replacement.

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