im ‧ per ‧ son ‧ al /ɪmˈpɜːs ə nəl $ -ɜːr-/ BrE AmE adjective
[ Word Family: noun : ↑ person , ↑ personality , ↑ persona , ↑ personage , the personals, ↑ personification , ↑ personnel ; adjective : ↑ personal ≠ ↑ impersonal , ↑ personalized , ↑ personable ; verb : ↑ personalize , ↑ personify ; adverb : ↑ personally ≠ ↑ impersonally ]
1 . not showing any feelings of sympathy, friendliness etc:
Business letters do not have to be impersonal and formal.
Sometimes she seems a very impersonal, even unkind, mother.
2 . a place or situation that is impersonal does not make people feel that they are important:
I hate staying in hotels; they’re so impersonal.
a formal and impersonal style of management
3 . technical in grammar, an impersonal sentence or verb is one where the subject is represented by ‘it’ or ‘there’, as in the sentence ‘It rained all day’
—impersonally adverb
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THESAURUS
■ place/organization
▪ unfriendly making you feel as though you are not wanted:
The report found that the Church can seem unfriendly to outsiders.
▪ unwelcoming unfriendly - used especially about the physical characteristics or appearance of something:
The entrance to the factory is cold, bare, and unwelcoming.
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The new fence is just one example of the city’s attempt to make public spaces unwelcoming to the homeless.
▪ impersonal lacking the normal friendly relations between people who work or do business together:
I had no desire to work for a large impersonal organization.
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They just handed over the keys and walked out – it was all so impersonal.
▪ forbidding unfriendly, uncomfortable, and a little frightening, so that you do not want to go there:
The school was a rather forbidding building surrounded by a high steel fence.