| 释义 |
personify, v.|pəˈsɒnɪfaɪ|
[app. a. F. personnifier (in Boileau, 17th c.), f. L. type *persōnificāre: see person and -fy.]
1. trans. To figure or represent (a thing or abstraction) as a person; to attribute a personal nature or personal characteristics to, by way of metaphor, in thought, or esp. in speech or writing; in art, to symbolize by a figure in human form.
1727–41Chambers Cycl. s.v., The poets have personified all the passions; and made divinities of them. Ibid., Personifying is essential to poetry, especially the epopœia. 1783H. Blair Lect. viii. I. 147 We can personify any object that we chuse to introduce with dignity. 1834McMurtrie Cuvier's Anim. Kingd. 1 It is in this latter sense..that we usually personify Nature. 1875Jowett Plato (ed. 2) IV. 376 Like mythology, Greek philosophy has a tendency to personify ideas.
2. To embody (a quality, etc.) in one's person or self; to be an embodiment or concrete type of; to exemplify in a typical manner; to impersonate. Chiefly in pa. pple. = embodied, ‘incarnate’.
1803Wellington in Gurw. Desp. (1837) II. 404 The natives of this country are rashness personified. 1849Macaulay Hist. Eng. ii. I. 246 In this man the political immorality of his age was personified.
3. To make or turn into a person; to give a human form or nature to. (Cf. personified 2.)
1768[W. Donaldson] Life Sir B. Sapskull II. xxi. 174 Men possessed of that plastic virtue to personify, and even make gentlemen out of the most stubborn and clownish ingredients.
4. To assume the person of, to personate. rare.
1824Hogg Conf. Sinner 257, I blessed myself, and asked whom it was his pleasure to personify to-night? 1851Gallenga Italy i. 33 There were adroit men about him, who did not scruple to personify him.
Hence perˈsonifying vbl. n. and ppl. a.
1886Athenæum 27 Feb. 290/1 Full of that personifying tendency. 1898Robertson Poetry & Relig. Ps. xi. 276 The personifying theorists. |