anthropomorphize

English

Alternative forms

• anthropomorphise (non-Oxford British spelling)

Etymology

By surface analysis, anthropo- +‎ morph +‎ -ize.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˌanθɹəpəˈmɔːfʌɪz/

Verb

anthropomorphize (third-person singular simple present anthropomorphizes, present participle anthropomorphizing, simple past and past participle anthropomorphized)

1. (transitive) To endow with human qualities.
2. (transitive) To attribute human-like characteristics to (something that is non-human).
   • 1988 January 15, Kathryn Hixson, “On Exhibit: a gallery full of flowers”, in Chicago Reader‎^[1]:

     Bonnie Lucas further anthropomorphizes the flower in her watercolors, combining it surreally with the human female figure […]

   • 1998, Paul McComas, Twenty Questions: A Collection of Short and Very Short Stories, Fithian Press, →ISBN, page 33:

     A month away from twenty-six and there you are, in the middle of a Monday afternoon, genuinely engaged in the madcap antics of a slope-headed, claymated man and his anthropomorphized horse.

   • 2018 June 15, Emma Brockes, “No, Facebook, I won’t be back. I’ve seen the dangers of habitual sharing”, in The Guardian‎^[2]:

     It has been two months since I last checked my feed, during which time Facebook has sent me notifications I didn't sign up for, informing me every time someone posts, and invited me to attend locally organised focus groups. […] Of course, I am anthropomorphising a machine; no one is in charge of all this.

   • 2021 August 19, Nancy Hass, “The Ceramists Crafting Miniature Menageries”, in The New York Times Style Magazine‎^[3]:

     But for some animal-obsessive ceramists, anthropomorphizing as a sculptural approach is a zany (and speedy) joy.

   • 2023 February 9, Ted Chiang, “ChatGPT Is a Blurry JPEG of the Web”, in The New Yorker‎^[4]:

     I do think that this perspective offers a useful corrective to the tendency to anthropomorphize large-language models, but there is another aspect to the compression analogy that is worth considering.

Derived terms

• anthropomorphizable
• unanthropomorphized

 

Related terms

• anthropomorphic
• anthropomorphically
• anthropomorphism
• anthropomorphization

 

Translations

attribute human qualities

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 人格化 (zh) (réngéhuà), 擬人化 / 拟人化 (zh) (nǐrénhuà)

• Dutch: antropomorfiseren (nl)
• Esperanto: please add this translation if you can
• Finnish: ihmisenkaltaistaa, antropomorfisoida
• French: anthropomorphiser (fr)
• German: vermenschlichen (de), anthropomorphisieren (de)
• Greek: ανθρωπομορφίζω (anthropomorfízo)
• Hebrew: להאניש
• Italian: antropomorfizzare (it)
• Portuguese: antropomorfizar
• Russian: очелове́чивать (ru) impf (očelovéčivatʹ), очелове́чить (ru) pf (očelovéčitʹ)
• Spanish: antropomorfizar (es)

to attribute human-like characteristics to something that is non-human

• Polish: antropomorfizować impf
• Russian: очелове́чивать (ru) impf (očelovéčivatʹ), очелове́чить (ru) pf (očelovéčitʹ)
• Ukrainian: антропоморфізува́ти impf or pf (antropomorfizuváty)