unperson

plural unpersons · plural unpeople

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.

   2 more examples

   In accordance with the change in the party line, Stalin vanished from the play, disappearing even before Mr. Krushchev's denunciation at the 20th Congress of the Communist Party. Stalin became an “unperson,” in the terminology of George Orwell's “1984”.

   1965 February 25, Harrison E. Salisbury, “Kremlin Chimes' Banished Stalin”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, archived from the original on 01 Nov 2021

   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.

   2000 October 13, John Ezard, Danny Gittings, “Nobel award amazes Chinese writer and literary world”, in The Guardian, archived from the original on 14 Oct 2016

present singular third person unpersons · participle present unpersoning · participle past unpersoned · past unpersoned

1. transitiveTo strip (a person) of rights, identity, or humanity; to dehumanize.

   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?

   2024, Leah Libresco Sargeant, “Embryos as Schrödinger’s Persons”, in The New Atlantis, number 76, Center for the Study of Technology and Society, →ISSN, page 41

   1 more example

   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."

   1958 May 3, anonymous author, “Lay Professors in Catholic Colleges”, in America, volume 99, number 5, →ISSN, page 160