A feminine noun, from the Latin persōna, this one from the Etruscan phersu which was borrowed from the ancient Greek prósopon, the mask worn by an actor to play their character (personaje in Spanish) and expand their voice: pros (in front of) opon (face) in the theatre. We can see that from its very origin the term persona expresses a fiction.
In Legal Spanish, a persona is an individual to whom the law grants the capacity to obtain rights and to be subjects of legal obligations. My Private Law teacher used to say that a persona is an imputation centre of rights and obligations. This means that we can have two types of personas: a persona física : Juan, Pedro, Mario, etc.; and a persona moral or jurídica: a school, a corporation, or any kind of organisation with personalidad jurídica, which is the ability to obtain rights and to be subject of legal obligations. As we can see, we are again in front of a (legal) fiction (ficción jurídica). A curiosity, the new Codígo Civil y Comercial in Argentina, in its article 19, renamed personas físicas as personas humanas; a bit more explicit. dc

La palabra del día: Persona

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