Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use personification in a sentence

16 example sentences · noun

Personification means a person, thing, or name typifying a certain quality or idea; an embodiment or exemplification. Example: “Adolf Hitler was the personification of anti-Semitism.”

Examples of personification by meaning

nounA person, thing, or name typifying a certain quality or idea; an embodiment or exemplification.

  • Adolf Hitler was the personification of anti-Semitism.
  • 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

nounAn artistic representation of an abstract quality as a human.

  • The Grim Reaper is a personification of death.

nounThe process of creating such a representation: a literary device or other artistic method in which an inanimate object...

  • 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.

More sentences with personification

  • The poem subjects the “wind” to a deeply embodied personification; it must fleshify.2019, Ruth Jennison, Julian Murphet, Communism and Poetry: Writing Against Capital, page 216. From the entry fleshify
  • Jimmy leaned forward holding his ear, the personification of naïveté, looking as young as a baby with his oh-so-innocent face.2001, Joshua Nedelman, The Garden of Eastern, page 36. From the entry way
  • A diffident, dedicated man, Bradley seemed the personification of rectitude.1989 May 22, Edwin M. Reingold, “Hard Times for Teflon Tom”, in TIME, archived from the original on 22 Oct 2010. From the entry too big for one's britches
  • There were also Nature deities, Hrede, the personification of the brightness of Summer, and Eostra, the radiant creature of the Dawn.1922, Eleanour Sinclair Rohde, The Old English Herbals, London: Longmans, Green and Co., page 3. From the entry Eostre
  • Her favourite animal is Feng-huang, the Chinese phoenix which is the personification of the primordial force of the heavens and the symbol of immortality.2016, Pamela Ball, “The Physical Practice of Tao”, in The Essence of Tao, London: Arcturus Publishing Limited, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 172. From the entry feng-huang
  • McClure was the personification of smarm.2012 May 20, Nathan Rabin, “TV: Review: THE SIMPSONS (CLASSIC): “Marge Gets A Job” (season 4, episode 7; originally aired 11/05/1992)”, in…. From the entry smarm
  • Burch seems to be on a mission to offset her hyperprivileged image as the personification of her thriving lifestyle-brand with a “common touch.”2008 June 12, Cintra Wilson, “Be Old Money or Just Look Like It”, in New York Times. From the entry hyperprivileged
  • The only difference is that man, by virtue of his greater capacity for cerebral action, is capable of extending and elaborating this basic personification.1941, George Ryley Scott, Phallic Worship: A History of Sex and Sex Rites in Relation to the Religions of All Races from Antiquity to the…. From the entry nascency
  • If we suppose that the Greek myth started with a single personification, the aftergrowth of a second personification may perhaps be explained as follows.1911, James George Frazer, The Golden Bough, volume 7, page 211. From the entry aftergrowth
  • These are Hine-karoro (origin and personification of the karoro, or black-billed gull), the next born being Hine-tara (the tara, or tern); the next is Hine-tore.1909, Royal Society of New Zealand, Transactions of the Royal Society of New Zealand, page 273. From the entry tara
  • “She became the personification of a particular response to the pandemic, which people in the far-flung margins of the internet and the not so far-flung margins used against her.”2023 January 19, Damien Cave, quoting Richard Shaw, “How Covid’s Bitter Divisions Tarnished a Liberal Icon”, in The New York Times, →ISSN. From the entry totem

Meaning of personification

  1. noun A person, thing, or name typifying a certain quality or idea; an embodiment or exemplification.
  2. noun An artistic representation of an abstract quality as a human.
  3. noun 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.

Full definition of personification

Questions about personification in a sentence

How do you use personification in a sentence?
Personification is used as a noun. For example: “Adolf Hitler was the personification of anti-Semitism.”
What is a short sentence with personification?
“McClure was the personification of smarm.”
What does personification mean?
Personification means a person, thing, or name typifying a certain quality or idea; an embodiment or exemplification.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: personification (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use personification in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/personification. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.