anthropomorphize
Other forms: anthropomorphized; anthropomorphizing; anthropomorphizes
When you talk about a thing or animal as if it were human, you're anthropomorphizing it. The Easter Bunny is an anthropomorphized rabbit.
People anthropomorphize all the time. If you've ever seen a dog in a sweater, that's a small case of an owner anthropomorphizing his pet. A cartoon dog who talks is a bigger case of anthropomorphizing. Shel Silverstein's book The Giving Tree anthropomorphizes the tree — the tree acts as if it were a person. It may seem kind of bizarre, but treating non-human things as human is a way of imagining another point of view.
-
ascribe human features to somethingsynonyms: anthropomorphise
- MLA
- APA
- Chicago
Vocabulary lists containing anthropomorphize
When a violent storm sinks the ship carrying his family from India to North America, Pi is trapped alone in a lifeboat with an orangutan, a hyena, a zebra, and a man-eating tiger named Richard Parker.
We've scoured this week's entertainment news and rounded up our favorite vocab words from the stories that everyone's buzzing about.
After relocating to Austin, Texas, a Canadian teenager attempts to make sense of American culture.