personification

Etymology

It is formed from English personify + -fication,^[2][3][4][5] on the pattern of pairs such as amplify and amplification.^[6] The verb is from person and -ify, after French personnifier (“to represent as a person”), recorded from the late 17th century;^[2] Etymonline allows either that formation or a borrowing of the French verb.^[7] Compare personnification, recorded from 1758.^[2] The ultimate source is Latin persōna (“mask used by a player, character in a play, person”),^[2][8][9][4] of unknown origin according to the OED, perhaps a loanword,^[2] and probably from an Etruscan word for a mask according to the American Heritage Dictionary.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The attribution of human form or character to a thing or abstraction, or its representation as a person: 1728, in the preface to E. Chambers's Cyclopædia.^[2][6] Etymonline gives 1755,^[7] and Dictionary.com 1745–55.^[5]

Semantic evolution

The word began as a term of rhetoric and art.^[2][10] Johnson (1755) explained it by prosopopœia, “the change of things to persons”, with an example from Milton, “Confusion heard his voice”.^[10] In 1807 Salmagundi shows the shift from the figure to the thing embodied, a person or thing that strikingly exemplifies a quality, a sense that Etymonline also dates to 1807 and that matches personify, to embody, from 1806.^[2][7] From 1850 the word could also name a god or mythical figure understood as standing for a thing,^[2] as when H. F. Tozer called Scylla the personification of the whirlpool.^[3] A rare sense, a dramatic or literary portrayal of a character, is recorded only from 1814 to 1848.^[2]

Timeline

• 1728 – the attribution of human form or character to a thing or abstraction.^[2][6] Etymonline dates it 1755.^[7]
• 1807 – a person or thing that embodies a quality or idea.^[2][7]
• 1814 – a dramatic or literary portrayal of a character (until 1848).^[2]
• 1850 – a god or mythical figure conceived as representing a thing or abstraction.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A person or thing regarded as the perfect example of a quality or idea; an embodiment: Her grandmother was the personification of calm.^[11][2][6]
2. The treating of a thing or abstraction as though it had human form or character.^[11][6][2]
3. A figure of speech that presents an inanimate object or abstract idea as a person; prosopopoeia.^[6][10]
4. The representation of an abstract idea by a human figure in art or literature.^[11][3]
5. A god or mythical figure understood to stand for a thing or abstraction.^[2][3]

Word family

• personificator
• nonpersonification

Related words

• personify
• person
• persona

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
5. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
6. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
8. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
9. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ a b c Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
11. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins