Other forms: personified, personifies, personifying
To personify is to be the living example of a quality. Personify patience.
It also means giving human qualities to a thing, which is what poets do to the sea and the wind. To personify a quality is a compliment or an accusation depending entirely on the quality.
1verbpersonifyTo be the living example of a quality.
“He seemed to personify everything the old firm had stood for.”
personify is an embodying.
Person plus -ify, after French personnifier.
French
personnifier
English, today
personify
From person + ify, after French personnifier.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA