FIRST PERSON

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does first person mean? 

• FIRST PERSON (noun)
  The noun FIRST PERSON has 1 sense:

1. pronouns and verbs used to refer to the speaker or writer of the language in which they occur

  Familiarity information: FIRST PERSON used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• FIRST PERSON (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Pronouns and verbs used to refer to the speaker or writer of the language in which they occur

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Hypernyms ("first person" is a kind of...):

person (a grammatical category used in the classification of pronouns, possessive determiners, and verb forms according to whether they indicate the speaker, the addressee, or a third party)

 Context examples 

The first person whom I saw, to my surprise, by the sober light of the shaded lamp, was Uriah.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Always the first person to be thought of!

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

Some of the blows of my cane came home and roused its snakish temper, so that it flew upon the first person it saw.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Now Mr. Davis had declared limes a contraband article, and solemnly vowed to publicly ferrule the first person who was found breaking the law.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

My mother was the first person who told me of it; and I, feeling myself called on to act with resolution, immediately said to her, 'My dear madam, I do not know what you may intend to do on the occasion, but as for myself, I must say, that if Edward does marry this young woman, I never will see him again.'

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

The earliest intelligence of the travellers' safe arrival at Antigua, after a favourable voyage, was received; though not before Mrs. Norris had been indulging in very dreadful fears, and trying to make Edmund participate them whenever she could get him alone; and as she depended on being the first person made acquainted with any fatal catastrophe, she had already arranged the manner of breaking it to all the others, when Sir Thomas's assurances of their both being alive and well made it necessary to lay by her agitation and affectionate preparatory speeches for a while.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

I observed that the latter always spoke of himself indefinitely, as “a man”, and seldom or never in the first person singular.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)