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
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
Then I was by him, &c. which he does not think a prosopopoeia, but spoken of a subsisting person.
From Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
The same thing happened to the Romans, when military success took them out of Italy,—a thing which the author of the prosopopoeia of Fabricius could not explain.
From What is Property? by P.-J. (Pierre-Joseph) Proudhon
And do you take seriously the city of Salente and the prosopopoeia of Fabricius?
From System of Economical Contradictions; or, the Philosophy of Misery by P.-J. (Pierre-Joseph) Proudhon
These prosopopoeia of Wisdom personified are found in much older books.
From The Life of Jesus by Ernest Renan
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.
