Word
anthropomorphise
Phoneticsan·thro·po·mor·phise
US/ˌænθɹəpəˈmɔɹfaɪz/
UK/ˈænθɹəpˌɒmɔːfˌaɪz/
Definition
v. to treat an animal, object, or god as if they have human feelings and thoughts.
v. to attribute human characteristics, motivations, or behaviours to non-human entities, such as animals or inanimate objects.
Examples
“People often anthropomorphise their pets by imagining they feel guilt.”
“It is easy to anthropomorphise the robot when it makes sounds that mimic a human sigh of frustration.”
“While it is tempting to anthropomorphise the complex social structures of ants, biologists warn that their collective behaviour is driven by chemical signals rather than human-like empathy.”
Examples
simple
“People often anthropomorphise their pets by imagining they feel guilt.”
contextual
“It is easy to anthropomorphise the robot when it makes sounds that mimic a human sigh of frustration.”
complex
“While it is tempting to anthropomorphise the complex social structures of ants, biologists warn that their collective behaviour is driven by chemical signals rather than human-like empathy.”
Usage
The verb is transitive and takes a direct object.
Real-World Examples
“We anthropomorphise animals all the time, but we also anthropomorphise action figures, or dolls, or companies when we talk about companies having intentions and so on.” “In other words, we anthropomorphise computers – we treat them as if they were human.” “In it, he criticised Anthropic for teaching its AI to have human-like qualities, a practice known as anthropomorphising, which he said made it seem as though Claude had its own desires, values and sense of self.” “According to Hume, the answer would be no; when it came to natural phenomena, he argued that we anthropomorphise to understand things that otherwise wouldn't make sense.” Etymology
The British spelling of anthropomorphize. It combines Ancient Greek ἄνθρωπος (ánthrōpos, “human”) and μορφή (morphḗ, “form”) with the verb ending -ise.
Etymology adapted from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Word family
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englishreference.com/q/anthropomorphise