[syn: personification, incarnation]
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
Personification \Per*son`i*fi*ca"tion\, n. [Cf. F.
personnification.]
1. The act of personifying; impersonation; embodiment. --C.
Knight.
[1913 Webster]
2. (Rhet.) A figure of speech in which an inanimate object or
abstract idea is represented as animated, or endowed with
personality; prosopop[oe]ia; as, the floods clap their
hands. "Confusion heards his voice." --Milton.
[1913 Webster]
WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):
personification
n 1: a person who represents an abstract quality; "she is the
personification of optimism"
2: representing an abstract quality or idea as a person or
creature [syn: personification, prosopopoeia]
3: the act of attributing human characteristics to abstract
ideas etc. [syn: personification, incarnation]
Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0:
31 Moby Thesaurus words for "personification":
acting, aping, characterization, corporealization, dumb show,
embodiment, enacting, enactment, imitation, impersonation,
incarnation, incorporation, masquerade, materialization,
metempsychosis, mimesis, mimicking, mimicry, miming, pantomime,
pantomiming, performance, performing, personation, playing,
portrayal, posing, reembodiment, reincarnation, substantiation,
transmigration