Sample sentences for PERSONIFY

2 meanings

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1 —as in:
She personifies wisdom.

Definition

to be a perfect example of

She personifies optimism.

personifies = is a perfect example of

Other Uses (with this meaning)

There are texts from Maya, who saw me on the news and thinks I'm dope personified, and texts from Chris.
Angie Thomas -- The Hate U Give

personified = represented perfectly

For us Ultima personified goodness, and any risk in defense of goodness was right.
Rudolfo Anaya -- Bless Me, Ultima
These were followed by the Moralities, plays in which were personified abstract virtues and vices.
Ralph Waldo Emerson -- Selected Essays
Peeperkorn was courtesy personified, by the way.
Thomas Mann -- The Magic Mountain
In her imagination he was that terrible moaning personified.
Leo Tolstoy -- War and Peace
I thought that for Deo the begging woman personified the problems of his country, and his fears for it.
Tracy Kidder -- Strength in What Remains
The lady was also in green, and so richly and splendidly dressed that splendour itself seemed personified in her.
Miguel de Cervantes -- Don Quixote
Night, in its sad, solemn, and benevolent aspect, apart from its stealthy and cruel side, was personified in this form.
Thomas Hardy -- Far from the Madding Crowd
The two of us personified the mix of arts and technology; right brain/left brain, drama guy/computer guy.
Randy Pausch -- The Last Lecture

Dictionary / pronunciation — Google^®Dictionary list — Onelook.com^®

2 —as in:
a cartoon with personified bears

Definition

to attribute human characteristics to objects, plants, or animals

Note the use of personification as when she wrote, "The clouds laughed at me."

personification = to attribute human characteristics to objects, plants, or animals

(editor's note: The suffix "-tion", converts a verb into a noun that denotes the action or result of the verb. Typically, there is a slight change in the ending of the root verb, as in action, education, and observation.)

Dictionary / pronunciation — Google^®Dictionary list — Onelook.com^®Wikipedia: Pathetic Fallacy

Less commonly:

More rarely, personify can have a specialized meaning in literature: to represent an abstract quality or idea as a person or creature — as in a fable where a fox personifies cleverness.

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