Bible Lexicons

Bullinger's Figures of Speech Used in the BibleBullinger's Figures of Speech

Antiprosopopoeia; or Anti-Personification

The opposite of Prosopopœia; Persons represented as inanimate things

An´-ti-pros-o´-po-pœ-ia. This is the name of the former figure with ἀντί (anti), opposite, prefixed. The name is given to this figure because it is the opposite of the-other: persons being represented as things, instead of things as persons.

2 Samuel 16:9.-"Then said Abishai the son of Zeruiah unto the king, Why should this dead dog curse thy lord, the king? let me go over, I pray thee, and take off his head."

A dog does not curse; still less does a "dead dog": but the vivid figure is eloquent, and stands for a whole paragraph which would be required to express literally all that the figure implies.