1. the attribution of human characteristics to nonhuman entities such as deities, spirits, animals, plants, or inanimate objects. It is a fundamental tendency of the human imagination as reflected in language, religion, and art.

2. in comparative psychology, the tendency to interpret the behavior and mental processes of nonhuman animals in terms of human abilities. A variation is anthropocentrism, which uses human experience as the standard by which the behavior or mental processes of nonhuman animals, for example, animal intelligence, is evaluated. See also Lloyd Morgan’s canon. Compare zoomorphism. —anthropomorphic adj.