personification
noun/pɚˌsɑ.nə.fəˈkeɪ.ʃən/
Etymology From person(ify) + -ification.
1
A person, thing, or name typifying a certain quality or idea; an embodiment or exemplification.
- Adolf Hitler was the personification of anti-Semitism.
- He might have sat for a personification of fear: if he moved, he seemed rather afraid of his own shadow following him too closely; if he laughed, he soon checked himself, quite alarmed at the sound.1837, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], “Publishing”, in Ethel Churchill: Or, The Two Brides. […], volume II, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, page 12:
1 more example
- De Coude was the personification of coolness—was he not the best shot in France?1913, Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Return of Tarzan, New York: Ballantine Books, published 1963, page 52:
2
An artistic representation of an abstract quality as a human.
- The Grim Reaper is a personification of death.
3
Usually The process of creating such a representation: a literary device or other artistic method in which an inanimate object or an idea is given human qualities.
- You might search in vain if you go looking for personification in his works: his style was very concrete.
- The writer used personification to convey her ideas.
- Derived terms
- impersonification, nonpersonification
- Related terms
- personify, pathetic fallacy
- Coordinate terms
- anthropomorphism, humanization, prosopopoeia