deperson means to take away essential attributes of a person; to make a human being less of a person. It carries an Arena rating of 1357, earned across 89 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, deperson ranks #76 of 17,131 for Scariest Words, #711 of 17,138 for Most Incisive Words, #2,139 of 17,132 for Most Betrayed by Its Sound, #3,164 of 17,151 for The Improbable.
Why “deperson” is a great word
DEPERSON — [Verb] To take away essential attributes of a person; to make a human being less of a person. From the English prefix de- (indicating removal or reversal) + person (from Latin persōna, "mask, character, person"). Unlike "dehumanize," which implies stripping away dignity to justify cruelty, or "depersonalize," which often denotes an internal feeling of detachment, to deperson is the external, formal act of negating status. It is the bureaucratic stamp that renders a name a number, the legal fiction that converts a citizen into an alien, and the quiet societal shift that makes a neighbor an inconvenience—the quiet machinery by which a society learns to look through a person, rather than at them.
Etymology
From de- + person.
verb
- To take away essential attributes of a person; to make a human being less of a person.
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
Words closest in meaning
By meaning, not spelling — each word's AI semantic fingerprint, nearest first.