Hands up if you love the city of Chicago! 

Carl Sandburg does:

"Come and show me another city with lifted head singing so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning."
—Carl Sandburg, "Chicago," 1914

We just saw Sandburg giving Chicago a "lifted head," one that's "singing." It's a lovely example of personification, or in a longer, fancier term, anth____morphism: the giving of human traits to non-human things. (Can you recall that fancier term?)

It's a cool way to play with language. We could file it away in our minds with other figures of speech, like imagery (words that paint pictures in the mind), hyper____ (wild exaggerations), similes and metaphors (comparisons with and without signal words, respectively, like "Love is like a battlefield" and "Love is a battlefield"), apo____phe (comments made aloud to absent or even imaginary people or things), and oxy_____s (seemingly contradictory comments that help you make a good point).

Now, here's something a bit different:

"Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota,
Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass."
—James Wright, "A Blessing," 1990

Okay, so this is some kind of figure of speech, because "twilight" doesn't really "bound forth," right? But maybe it's not personification, because "bounding forth" isn't necessarily something that people do; it's something four-legged animals do. So, maybe Wright isn't personifying twilight, but rather zoomorphizing it.

Let's explore that!

(To reveal any word with blanks, give it a click.) 

The word "zoomorphize" has Greek bits that literally mean "to (make into the) shape of an animal."

To zoomorphize someone or something is to make it seem like it has animal traits.

For example, T. S. Eliot zoomorphizes some fog below. Check out the bits I've underlined:

     "The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
     The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes,
     Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
     Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
     Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
     Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
     And seeing that it was a soft October night,
     Curled once about the house, and fell asleep."
     —T. S. Eliot, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," 1963

grammatical bits:

Part of speech:

Verb, the transitive kind: "Eliot zoomorphizes the fog;" "Wright zoomorphizes the twilight."

Other forms: 

Outside of the US, you might use the spelling "zoomorphise."

The other verb forms are "zoomorphized" and "zoomorphizing."

The adjective is "zoomorphic," as in "Eliot's poem features zoomorphic fog."

The noun is "zoomorphism" (or if you prefer, "zoomorphizing"), as in "Eliot's poem is rich with zoomorphism." You might be wondering why we didn't pick a nicer-sounding noun, namely "zoomorphosis." Well, it was already taken: zoomorphosis is either the (fictional) process of a human transforming into an animal or the (real) process of a plant structure forming with the help of an animal.

how to use it:

The word "zoomorphize" is rare, but delightfully precise and easy to understand.

You might talk about writers, artists, and other creators who zoomorphize people, or nature, or objects, or emotions: anything that isn't actually an animal.

To use the adjective, "zoomorphic," which can just mean "animal-like, shaped like an animal" or "having animal characteristics despite not being an animal," you might talk about zoomorphic gods, figures, characters, stories, or artwork.

examples:

"'BoJack Horseman' imbues the cynical TV industry with zoomorphic soul." 
— Sonia Saraiya, Salon, 19 July 2015

"We can also zoomorphise humans, describing our characteristics in animalistic terms. For instance, we can accept that dolphins 'merely' recognise unique identifiers, but claim that human name-using is no more than this anyway. Long before Darwin, Hume similarly zoomorphised the human power of empirical reasoning, which he claimed we 'possess in common with beasts' and which 'is nothing but a species of instinct or mechanical power.'"
— Julian Baggini, The Guardian, 15 May 2016

has this page helped you understand "zoomorphize"?

Awesome, I'm glad it helped!

Thanks for letting me know!
If you have any questions about this word, please message me at Liesl@HiloTutor.com.

study it:

Explain the meaning of "zoomorphize" without saying "portray as an animal" or "describe in animalistic terms."

try it out:

Alright, so, animals and people do a lot of the same things. Yawning, scratching, baring our teeth, bolting away. So where do we draw the line between zoomorphism and personification?

Let's decide.

For each example below, decide whether you think it's definitely zoomorphism, definitely personification, or too ambiguous to tell, and why.

1. "a cloud / lumbered over a ridge"
—Roberta Hill Whiteman, "Horses in Snow," 1984

2. "In our kitchen the maple-fire murmurs / In our stove."
—Hayden Carruth, "The Curtain," 1996

3. "[The fathers'] sons grow suicidally beautiful / At the beginning of October, / And gallop terribly against each other's bodies."
—James Wright, "Autumn Begins in Martins Ferry," 1990

4. "The ice was all around: / It cracked and growled, and roared and howled..."
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge, "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner," 1834

5. "[Come and show me another city] Laughing the stormy, husky, brawling laughter of Youth, half-naked, sweating..."
—Carl Sandburg, "Chicago," 1914

If you like, use this space to write. (To save your work, copy and paste it into an email or a document.)

before you review, play:

Try to spend 20 seconds or more on the game below. Don’t skip straight to the review—first, let your working memory empty out.

This month, our game is "Smorgasbord of Wordly Lore!"

Try a trivia question each day. It’ll have something to do with a food or a drink. You can play on hard mode by answering the question cold, or play on easy mode by highlighting the multiple choice options. To see the correct answer, scroll all the way down. Enjoy!

Try this one today: A Middle High German word meaning "ring" or "bracelet" may have filtered through Yiddish into English as the name for what tasty food?

Highlight below to reveal the multiple choice options...
A. cruller
B. bagel
C. donut

review this word:

1. Near opposites of ZOOMORPHIZE include

A. TAME and DEFANG (to make something less powerful).
B. NEGLECT and TRIVIALIZE (to treat something if it doesn't matter).
C. PERSONIFY (to portray like a person) and OBJECTIFY (to treat like an object).

2. In the poem "Brief reflection on killing the Christmas carp," Miroslav Holub zoomorphizes _____, saying it "_____."

A. smoke .. rises from chimneys
B. Christmas .. creeps along the ground
C. a kitchen-mallet .. hit[s] the right spot

Answers to the review questions: 1. C 2. B Answer to the game question: bagel

a final word:

I hope you're enjoying Make Your Point. It's made with love. I'm Liesl Johnson, a reading and writing tutor on a mission to explore, illuminate, and celebrate words. From my blog: On vocabulary...       36 ways to study words.       Why we forget words, & how to remember them.       How to use sophisticated words without being awkward. On writing...       How to improve any sentence.       How to motivate our kids to write.       How to stop procrastinating and start writing.       How to bulk up your writing when you have to meet a word count. From my heart: a profound thanks to the generous patrons, donors, and sponsors that make it possible for me to write these emails. If you'd like to be a patron or a donor, please click here. If you'd like to be a sponsor and include your ad in an issue, please contact me at Liesl@HiloTutor.com. A disclaimer: When I write definitions, I use plain language and stick to the words' common, useful applications. If you're interested in authoritative and multiple definitions of words, I encourage you to check a dictionary. Also, because I'm American, I stick to American English when I share words' meanings, usage, and pronunciations; these elements sometimes vary across world Englishes.