# Animal-omorphizing? (word for attributing animal characteristics to inanimate object) **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 23, 2003, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/animal-omorphizing-word-for-attributing-animal-characteristics-to-inanimate-object/156877 "2003-02-23T01:11:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![brianmelendez](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/65b543/32.png) [@brianmelendez](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brianmelendez)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2003, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/animal-omorphizing-word-for-attributing-animal-characteristics-to-inanimate-object/156877/1 "2003-02-23T01:11:38Z")
A friend just sent me this query: “I refer to my car as Silver, and treat her like a horse. Someone told me I was anthropomorphizing the car, but I’m not: I’m attributing equine characteristics, not human characteristics, to the Audi. Right? So what would one call that habit? I eagerly await your answer.” Is there a word for this phenomenon, either with respect to horses in particular or non-human animals in general? ---
**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2003, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/animal-omorphizing-word-for-attributing-animal-characteristics-to-inanimate-object/156877/2 "2003-02-23T01:15:50Z")
Zoomorphizing? ---
**Author:** ![clayton\_e](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c57346/32.png) [@clayton\_e](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clayton_e)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2003, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/animal-omorphizing-word-for-attributing-animal-characteristics-to-inanimate-object/156877/3 "2003-02-23T01:38:29Z")
I don’t know… The whole idea seems a bit fishy to me… ---
**Author:** ![Splanky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b2d939/32.png) [@Splanky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Splanky)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2003, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/animal-omorphizing-word-for-attributing-animal-characteristics-to-inanimate-object/156877/4 "2003-02-23T02:27:01Z")
Well it sounds a lot like personification. In that case, it would be zooinification (or something). ---
**Author:** ![Nametag](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nametag/32/406_2.png) [@Nametag](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nametag)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2003, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/animal-omorphizing-word-for-attributing-animal-characteristics-to-inanimate-object/156877/5 "2003-02-23T02:32:42Z")
What your friend is doing is akin to the “pathetic fallacy,” or animism. From there, I’d suggesting that he’s “animizing” his car. ---
**Author:** ![brianmelendez](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/65b543/32.png) [@brianmelendez](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brianmelendez)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2003, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/animal-omorphizing-word-for-attributing-animal-characteristics-to-inanimate-object/156877/6 "2003-02-23T02:33:25Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Q.E.D. \* > \*\*Zoomorphizing? \*\* So says my Webster’s Third New International Dictionary: > [@](#): > > **zo-o-mor-phize**. . . _vt_ -ED/ING/S [_zoomorph_ic] + _ize_] : to conceive of or symbolize or represent (a deity or supernatural being) as an animal Thanks, **Q.E.D.**! ---
**Author:** ![Nametag](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nametag/32/406_2.png) [@Nametag](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nametag)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2003, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/animal-omorphizing-word-for-attributing-animal-characteristics-to-inanimate-object/156877/7 "2003-02-23T02:39:41Z")
I don’t think that’s a very good use of _zoomorphize_; although the misuse is parallel to that of _anthopomorphize_ in the OP, both are dramatic terms in which the god or hero actually looks like a person or animal. Thus, Zeus appears as a swan or an old man, or a poet represents Hermes as a fox. What’s actually going on here is a sort of animism – the attribution of animate feelings and motivations to inanimate objects. While I don’t think that “animization” is a word at this time, it’s more apt than “animation,” which already means something else. ---
**Author:** ![Nametag](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nametag/32/406_2.png) [@Nametag](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nametag)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2003, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/animal-omorphizing-word-for-attributing-animal-characteristics-to-inanimate-object/156877/8 "2003-02-23T02:46:49Z")
Scratch that, I found a better word – again, I’m not sure it exists, but it parallels one that does. _Anthropopathy_ is the attribution of human feelings or motivations to nonhumans: gods, animals, what have you. I submit _zoopathy_ for a similar fallacy with respect to animal attributes. Ok, I’m done. Really. ---
**Author:** ![brianmelendez](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/65b543/32.png) [@brianmelendez](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brianmelendez)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2003, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/animal-omorphizing-word-for-attributing-animal-characteristics-to-inanimate-object/156877/9 "2003-02-23T02:50:34Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Nametag \* > \*\*What your friend is doing is akin to the “pathetic fallacy,” or animism. From there, I’d suggesting that he’s “animizing” his car. \*\* > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Nametag \* > \*\*I don’t think that’s a very good use of _zoomorphize_; although the misuse is parallel to that of _anthopomorphize_ in the OP, both are dramatic terms in which the god or hero actually looks like a person or animal. Thus, Zeus appears as a swan or an old man, or a poet represents Hermes as a fox. > > What’s actually going on here is a sort of animism – the attribution of animate feelings and motivations to inanimate objects. While I don’t think that “animization” is a word at this time, it’s more apt than “animation,” which already means something else. \*\* **Nametag** , I responded to **Q.E.D.** before I had seen your post, although it seems to me (just from the dictionary definitions, not from actual expertise with the literary devices) that either animism or zoomorphism can describe what my friend is doing with her car. But when I looked up _animism_, I see that there is also a word _animatism_, which may also be apt: > [@](#): > > **animism** : 2 : attribution of conscious life and a discrete indwelling spirit to every material form of reality (as to such objects as plants and stones and to such natural phenomena as thunderstorms and earthquakes) often including belief in the continued existence of individual disembodied spirits capable of exercising a benignant or malignant influence > > **animatism** : attribution of consciousness and personality but not of individual spirit to such natural phenomena as thunderstorms and earthquakes and to such objects as plants and stones ---
**Author:** ![Desmostylus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c57346/32.png) [@Desmostylus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Desmostylus)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2003, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/animal-omorphizing-word-for-attributing-animal-characteristics-to-inanimate-object/156877/10 "2003-02-23T03:15:45Z")
My Macquarie Dictionary (the paper kind) doesn’t limit zoomorphism to deities: > [@](#): > > **zoomorphic** _adj._ 1. ascribing animal form or attributes to beings or things not animal; representing a deity in the form of an animal.