prosopopoeia
Americannoun
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personification, as of inanimate things.
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a figure of speech in which an imaginary, absent, or deceased person is represented as speaking or acting.
noun
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rhetoric another word for personification
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a figure of speech that represents an imaginary, absent, or dead person speaking or acting
Other Word Forms
- prosopopoeial adjective
Etymology
Origin of prosopopoeia
First recorded in 1550–60; from Latin prosōpopoeia, from Greek prosōpopoiía “personification,” equivalent to prósōpo(n) “face, person ” + poi(eîn) “to make” + -ia -ia
Vocabulary lists containing prosopopoeia
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.
Over its many seasons of courtship Harrison has come to be the prosopopoeia of all the nation's unease over changing demographics.
From Salon • Feb. 20, 2021
The want of scenery is sometimes supplied by a very unclassical figure, which, just the reverse of the prosopopoeia or personification of grammarians, considers persons to represent things.
Honest Pantagruel, not understanding the mystery, asked him, by way of interrogatory, what he did intend to personate in that new-fangled prosopopoeia.
From Gargantua and Pantagruel, Illustrated, Book 3 by Motteux, Peter Anthony
The figure prosopopoeia is often but an impotent straining to impart poetic life; but the personification in in his motion is apt and effective.
From Essays Æsthetical by Calvert, George H. (George Henry)
Yet in nearly every literature death has been personified, while no kindred prosopopoeia of life is anywhere to be found.
From The Destiny of the Soul A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life by Alger, William Rounseville
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.
