per·son·i·fy

(pər-sŏn′ə-fī′)

tr.v. per·son·i·fied, per·son·i·fy·ing, per·son·i·fies

1. To think of or represent (an inanimate object or abstraction) as having personality or the qualities, thoughts, or movements of a living being: "To make history or psychology alive I personify it" (Anaïs Nin).

2. To represent (an object or abstraction) by a human figure.

3. To represent (an abstract quality or idea): This character personifies evil.

4. To be the embodiment or perfect example of: "Stalin now personified bolshevism in the eyes of the world" (A.J.P. Taylor).

[French personnifier, from personne, person, from Old French persone; see person.]

per·son′i·fi′er n.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

References in periodicals archive

Or when it becomes difficult to decide which is the personified and which is the personifier? As with so many other tropes, including allegory (which Paxson promises but fails to distinguish clearly from personification), the intrigue lies in how literature prompts us when we read a personification to respond to two ontologically different things at the same time (a person and an abstraction) and simultaneously to identify them as one and the same.

The Poetics of Personification

Millions of graduates have identified themselves as the personifiers of expertise and believe themselves entitled to rule.

The cold Civil War

Carmen and her personifiers could even accentuate this or that aspect of her characteristics, generating comic effects by playing with a supposed authenticity constructed by the artist.

Consuming Carmen Miranda: dislocations and dissonances in the reception of an icon

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