English

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Etymology

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de- +‎ person +‎ -ate

Verb

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depersonate (third-person singular simple present depersonates, present participle depersonating, simple past and past participle depersonated)

  1. To depersonalize; to remove the status of person.
    • 1847, The Biblical review, and Congregational magazine:
      Is there not a tendency to speak of the operation of the Holy Spirit as that of an influence, rather than an agency — to depersonate or impersonate Him?
    • 1993, Herbert F. Tucker, Critical essays on Alfred Lord Tennyson, page 101:
      In "St. Simeon Stylites" (1833), camparably, the monologist's obsession with gaining a sanctified fame leads him to depersonate himself into the very stone pillar on which he sits, the epithet by which he has his identity: he names himself, "I, Simeon of the pillar, by surname / Stylites, among men; I, Simeon, / The watcher on the column till the end" (lines 158-60).
    • 2014, Despina Kakoudaki, Anatomy of a Robot:
      The fantasy of robotic masses expresses a complex desire, to embody and depersonate at the same time.