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personification

Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The act of personifying.
  • noun A person or thing typifying a certain quality or idea; an embodiment or exemplification.
  • noun A figure of speech in which inanimate objects or abstractions are endowed with human qualities or are represented as possessing human form, as in Hunger sat shivering on the road or Flowers danced about the lawn.
  • noun Artistic representation of an abstract quality or idea as a person.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The act of personifying; specifically, in rhetoric, a figure of speech, or a species of metaphor, which consists in representing inanimate objects or abstract notions as endued with life and action, or possessing the attributes of living beings; prosopopœia: as, “the floods clap their hands,” “the sun rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race” “the mountains and the hills shall break forth into singing,”etc.
  • noun Embodiment; impersonation.
  • noun In art, the representation in the form of a person of something abstract, as a virtue or vice, or of an aggregation, as a race or nation, a body of doctrines, etc.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The act of personifying; impersonation; embodiment.
  • noun (Rhet.) A figure of speech in which an inanimate object or abstract idea is represented as animated, or endowed with personality; prosopop�ia.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A person, thing or name typifying a certain quality or idea; an embodiment or exemplification.
  • noun A figure of speech, prosopopeia, in which an inanimate object or an abstraction is given human qualities.
  • noun An artistic representation of an abstract quality as a human

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun representing an abstract quality or idea as a person or creature
  • noun a person who represents an abstract quality
  • noun the act of attributing human characteristics to abstract ideas etc.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • All that alpha male personification is just too wonderful to pass up.

    Bonds of Justice Nalini Singh 2010

  • Like the Arab the Indian is profuse in personification; but the doctrine of pre-existence, of incarnation and emanation and an excessive spiritualism ever aiming at the infinite, makes his imagery run mad.

    The Book of The Thousand Nights And A Night 2006

  • If you gotta go, then Gaiman's Death personification is not a half bad way to do it!

    Neil Gaiman - Busy, Busy, Busy 2004

  • This theory is sometimes called personification of natural forces, but only in the sense that nature is conceived as living, as vital with creative and preservative powers.

    The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 10: Mass Music-Newman 1840-1916 1913

  • Recycling the personification of theory as "de Man," he alternately ignores or dismisses theory's critique of personification (personification, that is, as an inevitable but endlessly unstable trope), and necessarily repeats in negative form the fetishizing gesture of the transference.

    Professing Literature: John Guillory's Misreading of Paul de Man 2005

  • [228] This chivalrous gentleman, well known as the personification of integrity and honour, had resided many years in the Islands and spoke Tagálog fluently.

    The Philippine Islands John Foreman

  • If the question of "What Is A Jew" is defined as the personification not of the idea embodied by the Talmud, but of an extremely narrow definition of Jewish practice and life, heretofore not accepted by normative Judaism, then the "crisis" shall continue at the fever pitch it now, sadly, but appropriately, deserves.

    English-writing Israeli-bloggers Religion 2010

  • Don't forget to touch on the idea of personification with your homeschooler, as it relates to Humphrey the hamster.

    BellaOnline - The Voice of Women 2009

  • There are different phases of going from mind fullness to god fullness, in these steps there will come a state where there will be a little bit of mind left which will give the illusions or personification, that is where people like Meera were when they say they saw Krishna as a blue skinned person, it is the mind which plays the trick, yes they had felt god, but i believe after someone asked them they tried to describe it then the little bit of mind they have will come and fill in the words to describe it, the moment god is described it will become duality, as you define god from what is not to what is.

    ReadABlog.com New Blogs and RSS Feeds 2010

  • Most show an easy mastery of terms such as personification and alliteration.

    Outstanding new teacher: dazzling performer Martin Wainwright 2010

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