Home › Glossary › Letter T

Theriomorphic imagery

Imagery
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

Poetic imagery granting animal characteristics to humans or gods

Detailed Definition
Theriomorphic imagery attributes animal forms or characteristics to humans, deities, or abstract concepts to convey primal instincts, mythological associations, or psychological states; it draws on cultural symbolism to evoke traits like cunning, ferocity, or grace through zoological metaphor.
Example
Example in poetry:
Theriomorphic imagery in Ted Hughes’s “The Thought-Fox”—mind as animal; In Sylvia Plath: “The bees are flying. They taste the spring.”—human emotions as hive; Theriomorphic imagery in Joy Harjo: “I become crow, watching my own funeral”; Contemporary: “My grief has feathers and claws” – Safia Elhillo
Additional Notes
Animal-form imagery or metaphor. Common in fables, allegories. Study beast epics, bestiary tradition. Effective for human behavior commentary through animal representation.
Also Known As
Animal imagery Beast description Creature figures Zoomorphic pictures
Skip to main content