persona
- 01 B2 Upper Intermediate
the personality or image that you show to other people, which is often different from your private self.
the social facade or public face an individual presents to the world, often contrasting with their inner character.
Simple“In public, the politician maintained a friendly persona, but he was actually quite shy.”
In context“The CEO carefully cultivated a persona of approachable humility, despite her reputation for being a ruthless negotiator behind closed doors.”
- 02 C1 Advanced
a character that an actor or performer creates for the public.
a fictional or semi-fictional character adopted by a performer or writer.
Simple“The singer's stage persona is much more aggressive than her real personality.”
In context“The comedian's stage persona was so convincing that fans were often surprised by his quiet, academic nature in real life.”
- 03 C1 Advanced
a description of a typical customer used by companies to help them design products.
a representative profile of a target user or customer type, used to guide product development and marketing strategy.
Simple“The design team created a persona named 'Sarah' to represent their average user.”
In context“By developing detailed user personas, the software engineers were able to anticipate the specific technical challenges a novice user might encounter.”
“For those who do complete the survey, our project uses four comfort personas, or "sparks": Traditional Thinker, Puddle Jumper, Curious Explorer and Deep Diver.”
“According to her own account, the persona of Rollerena was born on the evening of September 16, 1972, when a young Kentucky-born Vietnam War veteran first put on a gown and skates.”
Borrowed from Latin persōna (“mask; character”), of uncertain origin. Suggested to be from Etruscan 𐌘𐌄𐌓𐌔𐌖 (φersu, “mask; masked individual; actor”), which could be a loan from Ancient Greek πρόσωπον (prósōpon, “face; appearance; mask used in ancient theatre to denote a character or, more generally, a social role”). Doublet of person and parson.
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.