Using the word persons

There are few things in the English language more vexatious and bedeviling than two words which mean almost the same thing, especially if they are similar in appearance. The seeming luxury of having multiple words to choose from is not sufficient to offset the lingering fear that no matter which word you pick it will be the wrong one, causing people to silently laugh at you and judge both you and your grammar school teachers. So when presented with the choice of people or persons to describe a multitude of humans, many people begin to chew their fingernails in nervous agitation. Is there a simple explanation for which one to use?

Not really, but simple explanations aren’t all they’re cracked up to be, so keep reading.

Many usage guides over the years have suggested that there is a clear distinction between these two words; people is used when referring to a collective group or indeterminate number, and persons serves better when referring to individuals (or a number of individuals). There are many instances in which this difference may be observed, often when the two words are side by side.

That universal chearfulness which is the lot of some people, persons that you and I may envy at the same time that we despise, is all worth all that either fortune or nature can bestow.
—William Shenstone, Works, Letter, 27 Feb. 1753

Origins of People vs Persons

Both words may be traced to Latin roots: people comes from populus (“the people”), and person from persona (“mask [especially one worn by an actor], actor, person”). We have been quibbling about which one we should choose since at least the eighteenth century.

The word people, is so very general, that it cannot be connected with a determinate number; as for instance, four, five, or six people; but that of persons may.

To be pleasant at table, none should be admitted but people of good humour: neither should there be more than seven or eight persons.
—John Trusler Distinction between Words esteemed Synonymous in the English Language, 1776

The objections to using people as a plural of person have shifted over the centuries. George Crabb, writing in the early 19th century, offered a slightly class-conscious rationale for why people should be avoided:

As the term people is employed to designate the promiscuous multitude, it has acquired a certain meanness of acceptation which makes it less suitable than the word persons, when people of respectability are referred to.
George Crabb, English Synonyms Explained, 1818

Matters of respectability aside, the more common dictum until recently was that people should be avoided when referring to any specific or general number of individuals.

people: Where individual persons, or a number of such, are intended, this word should be discarded in favor of persons.
—Frank Vizetelly, A Desk-Book of Errors in English, 1920

The fourth edition of Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style still contains a cautionary note on not using people in this circumstance: “The word people is best not used with words of number, in place of persons. If of ‘six people’ five went away, how many ‘people’ would be left? Answer: one people.”

However, in the last few decades the trend has been very much in favor of people, rather than persons. The AP Stylebook flatly states “The word people is preferred to persons in all plural uses.” And The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage now also states “Use people as the plural of person,” although they add that persons may still be used in certain settings (“letters to the editor, in untranslated texts, in direct quotations and in a few established idioms like displaced persons and missing persons bureau”).

Collective Nouns

Persons tends to still be found in some formalized settings, such as legal writing, or when a writer wishes to appear extra fancy. But the tide of opinion has shifted enough that you should feel comfortable using people in most cases where you have a choice. And if your ear tells you that persons would work better, there are still enough writers who use this word that your choice will likely not be looked at askance. It should be remembered, however, that when a collective noun is called for (to refer, for instance, to the members of an entire nation) people is the appropriate word (“the French people”).

Is it persons, people or peoples?  In most cases, people is the correct term to use as a plural for the word person. The word persons is considered archaic, so unless you’re doing some legal writing, it’s best to avoid it. Meanwhile, peoples is only used to refer to distinct ethnic groups, oftentimes within the same region.

People Vs. Persons as Plurals

Both of the words people and person come from Latin, but they are each derived from different Latin words. People came from the word populus, which means “the people” and refers to a group from the same community or nation. Person, on the other hand, came from the Latin word persona, which initially meant “mask” but eventually came to refer to “an individual human.”

At one point in history, it was said that the word persons was to be used as the preferred plural whenever more than one person was referred to as a countable noun. Meanwhile, people was preferred for uncountable nouns. However, these grammatical rules never became standard. Today, the plural persons is only acceptable in legal contexts. In some cases, persons is also used to refer to humans on an individual basis, rather than a collective basis.

Examples

• Sixty people came to my Harry Potter costume party. Ten persons came dressed as either Dumbledore or Snape, but the rest of the people were all Harry Potter. (This is considered acceptable because the persons’ individual costume choices are relevant to the sentence’s context.)
• Ten people came dressed as either Dumbledore or Snape, but the rest of the people were all Harry Potter. (This is considered equally acceptable.)

The following examples are considered acceptable as well:

• More people should recycle regularly in order to save the planet.
• Why don’t more people understand that what they say affects others?
• Twenty people protested in Washington, D.C. today.

Formal Legal Writing: Persons Vs. People

The word persons is used regularly in the legal world, including law enforcement. As far as the law is concerned, nothing is collective. Therefore, persons is a helpful term. For example, groups of people are not prosecuted; individuals are. There are a few legal expressions that reflect this grammatical preference, such as “persons of interest” and “missing persons.” You’ll also see people use the word persons in formal writing that sounds legal, like public notices and rules. 

Examples

• Any person or persons vandalizing private property will be fined.
• Two persons of interest are currently being questioned.
• The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department has several open missing persons cases.
• No more than eight persons can enter the hot tub at the same time.

In a political context, persons is correct within the expression “displaced persons.” For example, you might hear someone say, “Visas will be expedited for displaced persons.”

You should always avoid using the word persons outside of legal contexts. Never use persons in business settings. 

Here’s an example of an unacceptable use of the word persons: “To the persons who stole my lunch from the break room: I’m watching you.” Using persons in this context sounds silly and a bit stuffy.

If you’ve used the word persons outside of a legal context, you can often replace it with the word those. For example, “Persons who use our services will be charged a fee,” turns into “Those who use our services will be charged a fee.”

People Vs. Peoples for Ethnic Groups and Nationalities

Always use the word people when referring to the people of a single nationality or ethnic group. 

Examples

• The people of the United States have a right to free speech.
• Joe Biden was elected by the people of the United States in 2020.

In cases where it’s necessary to distinguish between ethnic groups within the same cultural or geographical context, peoples can be used. 

• The peoples of Palestine and Israel are at war.
• The peoples of the world hold a variety of religious views.

The Bottom Line – Persons, People or Peoples?

When it comes to choosing persons, people or peoples, in the vast majority of cases, the correct plural of person is people. In legal contexts, the plural persons is used. When referring to more than one distinct ethnic group, use the word peoples.  

Here is another trio of words that are often the cause of some confusion: There, Their and They’re. 

Persons, people, and peoples: we know what they mean, but the relationship between them can be confusing. What’s the correct plural of person—persons or people? Why does people have its own plural?

Some of these questions have easy answers. But there are a number of nuanced aspects to their use, including those related to legal language, personal identity, and decisions about whether to emphasize individuals or groups. Then there are questions about capitalization, particularly for terms like people of color and Indigenous Peoples.

In this article, we’ll address the frequently asked questions surrounding persons, people, and peoples, including:

• When should persons be used instead of people?
• When should peoples be used instead of people?
• When should peoples be capitalized?
• What are the possessive forms of persons, people, and peoples?

What is the plural of person? Persons or people?

Both persons and people are acceptable plural forms of person. They’re not necessarily always interchangeable, but there is some overlap.

The plural form people is more common. That’s because it can be used in any context to refer to multiple individuals—one person, two people (or 100 people or 8 billion people, etc.).

Usually, you’ll see persons in more formal contexts, especially in legal and technical text, as well as a few other situations.

When to use persons vs. people

Persons is especially associated with its use in legal language, in which it’s often used rather than people to ensure clarity by emphasizing that the text is referring to multiple individuals, as opposed to a group as a whole, as in Occupancy is limited to 200 persons or Any person or persons found to be in violation of these rules shall be prohibited from participating.

When persons is used in this way outside of legal texts, it has historically been regarded as overly formal or stilted—it wouldn’t be natural to say I invited 10 persons to the party, for example. Increasingly, however, there are cases in which persons is thought to be more appropriate than people for other reasons.

This is especially the case in situations when you want to talk about individuals within a group, rather than the group as a whole. In this way, persons is sometimes used with terms related to identity to emphasize individuality, such as saying Jewish persons instead of Jewish people. Regardless of intent, though, statements that are about individuals with a common identity can lead to overgeneralizations or stereotyping, so it’s always best to consider whether the individuals’ common identity is an essential part of what you’re trying to say. Choosing how to refer to people can also be informed by preferences around language that’s person-first (as in person with autism) or identity-first (as in autistic person).

More generally, the word people can also be a collective noun that refers to a specific group, nation, tribe, or community, as in We are a resilient people or The Statue of Liberty was a gift to the American people.

Learn more about collective nouns and how to use them.

When to use peoples

The word peoples is specifically used as the plural of people in its sense as a collective singular noun referring to a nation, or tribe, or other community, as in Indigenous Peoples or the many peoples of the world.

This usage emphasizes that you’re talking about several different specific groups that share a commonality. This can be important for clarity—the many people of the world means something different than the many peoples of the world.

In practical terms, using peoples in this way can help to prevent erasure and homogenization of groups that are often lumped together in ways that obscure their specific, complex identities. In this way, the term Indigenous Peoples emphasizes the vast diversity among the world’s Indigenous groups while also implying that there are, in fact, separate and distinct groups.

When should People and Peoples be capitalized?

You may have noticed that Peoples is capitalized in Indigenous Peoples in this article (and in other articles that use the term).

Capitalization is increasingly used as a form of respect and distinction for terms that relate to identity. (Dictionary.com capitalizes Indigenous across the dictionary when it relates to identity in this way, just as we do for the word Black.)

The word Peoples is most often capitalized when it follows a specific modifier, as in Hispanic Peoples and Indigenous Peoples. In cases when it’s capitalized, it is often due to the fact that it refers not to people in general but to specific, distinct communities.

Similarly, the term People of Color is also sometimes capitalized, though not always, likely because it is typically used as a broad term that encompasses more specific identities, including Black and Indigenous people, for example (relatedly, this is what’s represented in the first part of the the abbreviation BIPOC).

What are the possessive forms of person, persons, people and peoples? Where should I put the apostrophe?

Is it people’s or peoples’? Person’s or persons’? All of these are valid possessives, but they indicate different things. Here is a breakdown of each possessive form, along with examples of their use.

Person

• Possessive form: person’s (singular possessive)
• Example: One person’s trash is another person’s treasure.

Persons

• Possessive form: persons’ (plural possessive)
• Example: The suspect confessed to the theft of several persons’ social security numbers.

People

• Possessive form: people’s (plural and singular possessive)
• Plural example: Tech support should be able to fix all six people’s issues by the end of the day.
• Singular example: The French people’s love of fine food is well known.

Peoples

• Possessive form: peoples’ (plural possessive)
• Example: The goal of the festival is to celebrate many different peoples’ cultures.

Examples of persons, people, and peoples used in a sentence

Here are some examples of the ways that each word is commonly used.

• We were hoping that at least one person would apply for the job, but we received applications from 60 people!
• The person or persons who may have witnessed the incident are being sought by police.
• My partner and I, as persons with autism, have a unique perspective on the issue.
• The class will be focused on the history, peoples, and cultures of the region.
• Indigenous Peoples’ Day is a time to honor Indigenous Peoples in the Americas and around the world.

The noun person has two plurals: persons and people. Most people don’t use persons, but the sticklers say there are times when we should. “When we say persons,” says Wilson Follett’s Modern American Usage, “we are thinking, or ought to be, of ones—individuals with identities; whereas when we say people we should mean a large group, an indefinite and anonymous mass.”

The traditional rule is that persons is used for either an exact or a small number. So we might estimate that a hundred people were there. Or if we know the exact number, we’d say ninety-eight persons were there.

As for “a small number,” how small is “small”? In Words on Words, John B. Bremner suggests fewer than fifty. Theodore M. Bernstein concurs, saying in The Careful Writer that fifty people is acceptable. To Bernstein, two people is nearly unthinkable but 4,381 persons is “quite proper.”

Meanwhile, the language moves on. In A Dictionary of Modern American Usage, Bryan A. Garner calls the persons-people distinction “pedantic.” Garner says that twelve persons on the jury “sounds stuffy” and that most Americans today would say people instead. Roy H. Copperud agrees. In A Dictionary of Usage and Style he dismisses the grammatical superiority of persons as “superstition,” a law that “usage has in fact repealed.”

Because persons sounds aloof and clinical, the word still thrives in legal, official, or formal usage. A hotel chain’s website offers “options for three and more persons.” Elevators carry signs saying, “Occupancy by more than eight persons is unlawful.” The Department of Justice has a database called the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System.

A more timely debate these days would be people vs. folks. Traditionalists regard folks with suspicion and contempt. Bernstein says, “Folks is a casualism … not suitable for general straightforward writing.” Bremner calls it “deliberately folksy” and “corny in formal speech and writing.” But judging by its growing popularity and acceptance in this informal age, folks will probably be synonymous with people in another ten years.

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