personification
/pɚˌsɑ.nə.fəˈkeɪ.ʃən/
personification noun: a person, thing, or name typifying a certain quality or idea; an embodiment or exemplification.
Noun
personification (countable and uncountable, plural personifications)
- 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
- An artistic representation of an abstract quality as a human.
- The Grim Reaper is a personification of death.
- 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.
personification meaning in Urdu, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada
personification in Urdu
- تجسم شخصیت
personification in Telugu
- personification
- వ్యక్తీకరణము vyaktīkaraṇamu
personification in Malayalam
- incarnation, embodiment, epitome
- മൂർത്തിമദ്ഭാവം, മൂർത്തരൂപം, മൂർത്തമാകൽ, കാണപ്പെട്ട ദെെവം, ഉടലാർന്നരൂപം, അവതാരപുരുഷൻ
personification in Kannada
- ಮನುಷ್ಯತ್ವಾರೋಪಣ, ಮೂರ್ತೀಕರಣ, ವ್ಯಕ್ತೀಕರಣ, ಚೈತನ್ಯಾರೋಪಣೆ, ಆದರ್ಶನೀಯ ವ್ಯಕ್ತಿ, ಮೂರ್ತರೂಪ
More languagesFewer languages
- personification in Tagalog
- pagsasatao
- personification in Arabic
- تَجْسِيد tajsīd
- personification in Malay
- personifikasi
- personification in Indonesian
- personifikasi
- personification in Thai
- บุคคลวัต
Examples of personification in a sentence
- The poem subjects the “wind” to a deeply embodied personification; it must fleshify.
- Jimmy leaned forward holding his ear, the personification of naïveté, looking as young as a baby with his oh-so-innocent face.
- A diffident, dedicated man, Bradley seemed the personification of rectitude.
Forms of personification
| plural | personifications |
|---|
Origin of personification
From person(ify) + -ification.
Words formed from personification
Words that rhyme with personification
- station
- collation
- accommodation
- presentation
- derivation
- information
- modulation
- translation
- application
- fixation
- generation
- orientation
48 more rhymesFewer rhymes
- citation
- combination
- communication
- conjugation
- constellation
- determination
- elevation
- operation
- relation
- reservation
- alternation
- condensation
- conversation
- deviation
- excavation
- foliation
- formation
- foundation
- incarnation
- interpretation
- representation
- retardation
- speculation
- termination
- abbreviation
- adaptation
- articulation
- bifurcation
- concentration
- congregation
- declination
- degradation
- expectation
- extenuation
- gradation
- observation
- population
- preparation
- reconciliation
- rotation
- separation
- situation
- vexation
- vindication
- accumulation
- administration
- aggregation
- appropriation
Questions about personification
- What does personification mean?
- Personification means a person, thing, or name typifying a certain quality or idea; an embodiment or exemplification.
- What is personification in Urdu?
- Personification in Urdu is تجسم شخصیت. See Personification meaning in Urdu.
- What part of speech is personification?
- Personification is a noun.
- How do you pronounce personification?
- Personification is pronounced /pɚˌsɑ.nə.fəˈkeɪ.ʃən/.
- What is the plural of personification?
- The plural of personification is personifications.
Words near personification in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: personification (page history and authors); personification (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); వ్యక్తీకరణము (Telugu) (page history and authors); personification (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); personification (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-personification.ogg.
Cite this entry: “personification.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/personification. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.