personifies

Personifies is the third-person singular present tense of the verb to personify. To personify something is to attribute human characteristics to a non-human thing, or to present it as if it were a person. Personification can involve giving a thing human emotions, intentions, or actions, rather than literal human form. In literature and everyday language, writers use personification to convey familiarity, emotion, or moral meaning. Examples include phrases like “Death stalks the corridor” or “The wind whistled through the trees.” In such cases, the non-human subject is described with human traits, enabling readers to relate to it more vividly.

Personification differs from anthropomorphism, which endows a non-human thing with a concrete human or animal form; personification focuses on human qualities rather than shape, though the lines often blur in practice. The term derives from Latin persona, meaning mask or character, with the sense of “to make into a person” via the verb form personificare. In rhetorical analysis, personification is classified as a figure of speech or prosopopoeia when an absent or inanimate entity speaks or acts as a person. The verb form personifies is commonly used to discuss literary analysis, cultural imagery, or linguistic usage.