personify
Americanverb (used with object)
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personifies,
present (3rd person singular)
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personified,
past participle, past
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personifying
present participle
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to attribute human nature or character to (an inanimate object or an abstraction), as in speech or writing.
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to represent (a thing or abstraction) in the form of a person, as in art.
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to embody (a quality, idea, etc.) in a real person or a concrete thing.
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to be an embodiment or incarnation of; typify.
He personifies the ruthless ambition of some executives.
The vicar's wife was grace and beauty personified.
- Synonyms:
- incorporate, exemplify, represent
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to personate.
verb
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to attribute human characteristics to (a thing or abstraction)
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to represent (an abstract quality) in human or animal form
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(of a person or thing) to represent (an abstract quality), as in art or literature
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to be the embodiment of
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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personifysimple
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personifiessimple
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have personifiedperfect
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has personifiedperfect
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am personifyingprogressive
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are personifyingprogressive
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is personifyingprogressive
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have been personifyingperfect progressive
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has been personifyingperfect progressive
Past
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personifiedsimple
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had personifiedperfect
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was personifyingprogressive
-
were personifyingprogressive
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had been personifyingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of personify
First recorded in 1720–30; person + -ify; compare French personnifier, Italian personificare
Explanation
To personify is to give something lifeless human-like qualities — like when Emily Dickinson wrote, "Because I could not stop for Death, He kindly stopped for me..." You can also use the verb personify to show one person embodying another, like an actor attempting to personify Abraham Lincoln in a play about the former president. A person can also personify a value or emotion, as when the founder of a charitable organization is said to personify generosity and selflessness. When you add the suffix -ify (meaning "to make") to a noun, you "verbify" that noun. So personify means "to make into a person."
Vocabulary lists containing personify
Power Suffix: -fy
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Or do these émigrés personify a loss of faith in America’s future and way of life?
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 26, 2026
Those who seek to govern us seek too to attempt to personify – however imperfectly – the country they seek to lead.
From BBC ● May 28, 2024
Some early depictions show voladores dressed as birds, perhaps to personify gods.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 20, 2023
Of one starved survivor who wept before him, Kissinger reflected: “Human dignity, objective values have stopped at this barbed wire”—but “as long as conscience exists as a conception in this world you will personify it.”
From Slate ● Nov. 30, 2023
But when they told of the coming of love and light the early storytellers were setting the scene for the appearance of mankind, and they began to personify more precisely.
From "Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes" by Edith Hamilton
And yet, for some reason, it is the band’s rhythm guitarist who personifies immortality.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 11, 2025
In his maqāma, Ibn al-Wardi personifies the plague as a mischievous wanderer who brings death to one region after another over a 15-year journey.
From Science Daily ● Nov. 11, 2025
But in some ways he personifies the late pontiff's legacy in his country.
From BBC ● May 7, 2025
“The shadow personifies everything that the subject refuses to acknowledge about himself,” Jung wrote.
From Slate ● Apr. 27, 2025
Don Quixote is inexpressibly dear to us because he personifies the ridiculous tasks which we attempt, though we know them to be ridiculous.
From Mountain Meditations and some subjects of the day and the war by L. (Lizzy) Lind-af-Hageby
Carlo Ancelotti was coolness personified, and no wonder all his players love him - he is a great football man and human being.
From BBC ● May 15, 2026
He personified the globalization that brought billions out of poverty.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 3, 2026
These building blocks of the fest are personified by the big red “Netflix Is a Joke” blocks found on almost every stage.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 29, 2026
“Unfortunately, but predictably, it was at the expense of signaling that Lululemon was no longer the leading, premium, cool brand initially personified by its muse.”
From MarketWatch ● Apr. 29, 2026
To them, a clean-living, hardworking farmer personified the ideal citizen.
From "Sterling Biographies®: Cleopatra: Egypt's Last and Greatest Queen" by Susan Blackaby
There’s an obvious objection to all this: It sounds as if we’re naively personifying a giant math problem, mistaking statistical patterns for sentience—falling for the oldest anthropomorphic error in the book.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 25, 2025
Directed by artistic director Mathew Wright, the solo performance features Alcalá personifying four nurses and a respiratory therapist, using their words, verbatim, about working during the COVID-19 pandemic.
From Seattle Times ● Jan. 20, 2023
One banner commemorating the Bill of Rights borrows from Christmas language to proclaim, “Joy to the world — the Bill of Rights is born,” elevating and personifying the document that grants Americans consequential freedoms.
From Washington Times ● Dec. 15, 2022
One of his only hobbies is putting holes in the wall, personifying the imploding of your life once parenthood enters it like a bomb going off.
From Salon ● Aug. 28, 2022
Ah! 'tis bitter warfare when a man contends with Hope!—when he sees her, with little aid from the personifying influence, as a thing distinct from himself—a lying spirit that comes to flatter and deceive him.
From Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume I Historical, Traditionary, and Imaginative by Various
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
