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 ascribe human characteristics and behaviors to nonhuman entities.
   • 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: הֶאֱנִישׁ (he'enísh)
• Italian: antropomorfizzare (it)
• Portuguese: antropomorfizar
• Russian: очелове́чивать (ru) impf (očelovéčivatʹ), очелове́чить (ru) pf (očelovéčitʹ)
• Spanish: antropomorfizar (es)

to attribute human 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)