personify
Americanverb (used with object)
-
personifies,
present (3rd person singular)
-
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.
-
to represent (a thing or abstraction) in the form of a person, as in art.
-
to embody (a quality, idea, etc.) in a real person or a concrete thing.
-
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
-
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:
Their new captain, Andy Burnham, is of towering ambition, claiming he will personify "the most significant change" in our politics in 40 years.
From BBC ● Jul. 17, 2026
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
They personify intangibles that sabermetrics can never quantify and that fans yearn to encounter: Hope.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 23, 2024
For most of his life, the Rev. Dr. Norman Kansfield seemed to personify the Reformed Church in America.
From New York Times ● Apr. 30, 2024
To a greater or lesser degree, most members of the reporting team performed similar feats of tedious investigation before finding characters who would personify the statistical trends.
From "Class Matters" by The New York Times
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
“The shadow personifies everything that the subject refuses to acknowledge about himself,” Jung wrote.
From Slate ● Apr. 27, 2025
The award, introduced in 2023, is intended to reward an individual who most personifies the "spirit of Glasgow".
From BBC ● Mar. 30, 2025
To them Ireland personifies all the great causes of the war, and a blow struck for these causes, no matter where, is a blow struck for her.
From The Irish on the Somme Being a Second Series of 'The Irish at the Front' by Michael MacDonagh
The resulting sequence sees her pursued on horseback by death personified, and it remains, 98 years later, a dazzling thrill on the big screen.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 10, 2026
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
“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
Cabello has personified Venezuela’s ruling socialist movement like few others.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 7, 2026
Literally, I take a two-second photograph, and now I’m obstruction personified.
From "What If It's Us" by Becky Albertalli and Adam Silvera
All were revolutionaries, changing the character of the world they inhabited and personifying the inventiveness at the heart of the American character itself.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 3, 2026
Beatriz plays with a spectrum that wasn’t available to her as Rosa Diaz in “Brooklyn Nine-Nine,” personifying the balance Schur and his writers strike between serious matters and laughter.
From Salon ● Nov. 21, 2024
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
On the other side of town is another, equally imposing statue personifying the Italian stonemasons who also brought their skills to Barre.
From Washington Post ● Jun. 16, 2022
We are therefore formulating no metaphysical theory in personifying mankind, and pointing out that the perfecting of which it is capable is the great end which it has set itself.
From A Review of the Systems of Ethics Founded on the Theory of Evolution by C. M. Williams
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.
