prosopopoeia
/pɹəˌsəʊpəˈpiːə/ noun
Forms prosopopoeias prosopopoeiae prosopopeia prosopopœia
- noun (rhetoric) An act of personifying a person or object when communicating to an audience; a figure of speech involving this.
- noun The personification of an abstraction.
Synonyms
Etymology
Learned borrowing from Ancient Greek προσωποποιία (prosōpopoiía, “dramatization, the putting of speeches into the mouths of characters”). By surface analysis, prosopo- + -poeia.
Webster’s 1913
- noun A figure by which things are represented as persons, or by which things inanimate are spoken of as animated beings; also, a figure by which an absent person is introduced as speaking, or a deceased person is represented as alive and present. It includes personification, but is more extensive in its signification.
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “prosopopoeia”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details