per-person

The term "per-person" is a modern English compound formed by combining the Latin preposition "per," meaning "through" or "by," with the noun "person." The Latin "per" was used to denote distribution, as seen in terms like "per diem" (by the day). "Person" entered English via Old French from the Latin "persona," which originally referred to a theatrical mask and later to a character or role, eventually solidifying its meaning as an individual human. The compound "per-person" logically applies the distributive sense of "per" directly to the unit of an individual, creating a concise adjectival phrase meaning "for each individual," commonly used in contexts of budgeting, statistics, and resource allocation.

Structure: per (through, by) + person (individual human) - per: Latin origin, meaning "through, by, by means of". Functions as a prepositional prefix indicating distribution or rate. - person: Latin origin (from 'persona', meaning "mask, character, person"). Functions as the noun root, denoting an individual human being.