NOUN:

Attribution of human motivation, characteristics, or behavior to inanimate objects, animals, or natural phenomena.

anthropomorphism : using human (Greek anthro-) forms (Greek -morph) or characteristics to describe spiritual beings such as God, angels, or demons. Neither the Father nor the Holy Spirit have actual eyes, ears, hands, fingers, mouth or face, yet when such familiar terms are used, we can more easily grasp something important about God. Through them we can picture what God is doing, and get some hint of what God is like. God has honored these material-world body parts (and the words and ideas related to them) through the material-being Jesus, and by using them to communicate and to relate with us. The danger in using anthropomorphisms comes when we think of God like we do ourselves, when in fact God is quite different, much ‘bigger’. Technically, all words and images we use about God are in some sense ‘anthropomorphisms’, since they all come from our experiences in a world of shapes and bodies. But some words and phrases are much better than others at catching who God is and what God is about. Some words prompt our minds to reach for something beyond ourselves. The Spirit gives special strength to those words and phrases, in the Bible, in prophecy, and even sometimes in theological shop-talk.

Educational programs like Sesame Street often use anthropomorphized figures of letters, numbers or shapes to help teach their concepts.

For example: naming cars

“A popular anthropomorphism, which is seen frequently, people start to beg to the vending machines to take their dollars.”