unperson

noun

Etymology

From un- + person. Coined by George Orwell in 1949 as part of the Newspeak in his novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, where it refers to a person who has been executed or has fallen out of favor; whose entire history has been erased.

derived from 𐌘𐌄𐌓𐌔𐌖 — “mask”
derived from persōna — “mask used by actor; role, part, character”
derived from parsone
inherited from persoun
prefixed as unperson — “un- + person”

Definitions

1
A person who has been stripped of rights, identity, or humanity.
- With his identity stolen, he became an unperson, unable to prove his existence to the government.
- 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.
2
To strip (a person) of rights, identity, or humanity
To strip (a person) of rights, identity, or humanity; to dehumanize.
- 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?

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for unperson. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA