dispersonify

English

Etymology

dis- +‎ personify

Verb

dispersonify (third-person singular simple present dispersonifies, present participle dispersonifying, simple past and past participle dispersonified)

1. To view as impersonal; to see as an object rather than as having personal attributes.
   • 1864, The Spectator - Volume 37, page 1363:

     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.

   • 1899, Friedrich Max Müller, Collected Works, page 407:

     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.

   • 1981, Harvard English Studies - Volume 9, page 35:

     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.

   • 2016, Heather Keenleyside, Animals and Other People:

     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.