prosopopoeia
/pɹəˌsəʊpəˈpiːə/
prosopopoeia means an act of personifying a person or object when communicating to an audience; a figure of speech involving this. Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 85 out of 100.
prosopopoeia is pronounced /pɹəˌsəʊpəˈpiːə/.
Why “prosopopoeia” is a great word
PROSOPOPOEIA — [Noun] A rhetorical figure in which an abstract thing, inanimate object, or absent person is represented as speaking or acting. Learned borrowing from Latin prosōpopoeia, from Ancient Greek προσωποποιία (prosōpopoiía), from πρόσωπον (prósōpon, "face, person") + ποιέω (poiéō, "to make"). Unlike personification, which broadly attributes human qualities, or apostrophe, which addresses an absent entity, prosopopoeia specifically conjures a voice and grants it the agency to speak back. It is the sudden, chilling address from a skull in a graveyard, the passionate lament of a rusted gate on its hinges, or Liberty crying out in a silent square—a brief, haunting covenant between the world and the voices we carve from its silence.
Etymology
Learned borrowing from Ancient Greek προσωποποιία (prosōpopoiía, “dramatization, the putting of speeches into the mouths of characters”). By surface analysis, prosopo- + -poeia.
noun
- An act of personifying a person or object when communicating to an audience; a figure of speech involving this.“Of the prosopopœia or personification, there are two kinds: one when action and character are attributed to fictitious, irrational, or even inanimate objects; the others, when a probable but fictitious speech is assigned to a real character.”
- The personification of an abstraction.