Personification
[pə,sɒnɪfɪ'keɪʃ(ə)n] or [pɚ,sɑnɪfɪ'keʃən]
Definition
(noun.) the act of attributing human characteristics to abstract ideas etc..
(noun.) representing an abstract quality or idea as a person or creature.
(noun.) a person who represents an abstract quality; 'she is the personification of optimism'.
Typed by Jack--From WordNet
Definition
(n.) The act of personifying; impersonation; embodiment.
(n.) A figure of speech in which an inanimate object or abstract idea is represented as animated, or endowed with personality; prosopop/ia; as, the floods clap their hands.
Editor: Vince
Synonyms and Synonymous
n. (Rhet.) Prosopopœia.
Typed by Gwendolyn
Examples
- But if, instead of being the personification of reserve and discretion, she were something quite opposite, I should not fear her. Charlotte Bronte. Shirley.
- Mrs. Vesey looked the personification of human composure and female amiability. Wilkie Collins. The Woman in White.
- Dorothea was not only his wife: she was a personification of that shallow world which surrounds the appreciated or desponding author. George Eliot. Middlemarch.
- A personification, was Tarzan of the Apes, of the primitive man, the hunter, the warrior. Edgar Rice Burroughs. Tarzan of the Apes.
- In an age when religious faith was declining, we find men displaying a new and vivid belief in the reality of these personifications. H. G. Wells. The Outline of History_Being a Plain History of Life and Mankind.
- The Bible abounds in such personifications. H. G. Wells. The Outline of History_Being a Plain History of Life and Mankind.
- It contained a brilliant account of the festivities and of the beautiful and accomplished Mrs. Rawdon Crawley's admirable personifications. William Makepeace Thackeray. Vanity Fair.
- In numberless cases, more or less silly personifications were resorted to. John Dewey. Democracy and Education.
Typist: Yvette