Dictionary

dispersonify en · VERB

Etymology

From dis- + personify.

Meanings

1. To view as impersonal; to see as an object rather than as having personal attributes.
   • When even a stone was a cutter, a tooth a grinder, a gimlet a borer, the difficulty was not how to personify, but how to dispersonify. 1899, Friedrich Max Müller, Collected Works, page 407:
   • With these shifts in point of view, Thomson makes body parts not only the objects or the means but also the subjects of personification, granting the eyes and ears of a bee or a hare the power to dispersonify humans. 2016, Heather Keenleyside, Animals and Other People:
   • It is almost impossible for the most prosaic mind to dispersonify a ship. It requires a greater effort probably on the part of the Englishman to view a ship as an inanimate object than for the ancient Greek to dispersonify the sun or moon. 1864, The Spectator - Volume 37, page 1363:
   • Along these lines we can approach a pure allegorical reading — pure in being univocal, not hybridized. In this reading predicates are construed so as radically to dispersonify their meanings. 1981, Harvard English Studies - Volume 9, page 35:

Forms