English

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Alternative forms

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Etymology

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

Pronunciation

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  • IPA(key): /ˌanθɹəpəˈmɔːfʌɪz/

Verb

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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

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Translations

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