difference between persons and people

people - ()Nowadays, "people" is almost always the right choice when you are talking about more than one person. Traditionally, "people" was proper when referring to a mass of people.

persons - () "persons" was proper when referring to a distinct number of individuals (e.g., Squiggly noted that eight persons showed up for the book club meeting).

difference between persons and people

Nowadays, "people" is almost always the right choice when you are talking about more than one person.

Some dictionaries don't even include "persons" as the plural of "person" anymore, and the few dictionaries that do include "persons" note that it is uncommon, archaic, or going out of style.

Traditionally, "people" was proper when referring to a mass of people (e.g., Squiggly couldn't believe how many people were at the wrestling match), and "persons" was proper when referring to a distinct number of individuals (e.g., Squiggly noted that eight persons showed up for the book club meeting).

People vs. persons

In modern English, people is the de facto plural of person. People and person have separate Latin origins, and they came to English at different times by different paths, but there are examples of people used as a plural of person from as early as the 14th century. Persons was the original plural, and it is possible to find examples of its use in all types of writing up to the present, but it prevails only in a few contexts, most notably law and law enforcement, and in a few common phrases (e.g., persons of interest, displaced persons, missing persons). Elsewhere, it usually gives way to people.

There is an old usage prescription holding that people applies to uncountable groups of individuals (e.g., Times Square was packed with people) whilepersons applies to groups that are easily counted (e.g., there were four persons on the balcony). But there is no good reason for this distinction, and in any case it is not consistently borne out in real-world usage.