"Personified" in an OED definition
While writing an answer to this question, I looked up the word ennui in the full version of the Oxford English Dictionary. (I'd give you a link, but I access the OED through my local library's proxy service, so it wouldn't work for you; if you have access, go to oed.com and search for "ennui" as a noun). Three senses are given. The first and third senses are normal dictionary definitions with the customary example sentences, but the second, in its entirety, is:
b. Personified.
What does this mean? I'm not asking about the word per se—yes, I know what personification is—I'm wondering why the word appears alone here, without elaboration or examples or a clue as to how it pertains to the rest of the entry.
A possible clue: Sense c ("A cause of ennui") is accompanied by four example sentences, the first two of which contain personifications of ennui:
1790 C. M. Graham Lett. Educ. 290 It would entirely subdue the dæmon Ennui.
1812 H. Smith & J. Smith Rejected Addr. 11 The fiend Ennui awhile consents to pine.
Have these two examples simply been attributed to the wrong sense, or is something else going on here? Does anyone have access to the print version to check?
In the paper version of the OED (1979), senses b. and c. are on the same line, like this: b. Personified. c. concr. A cause of ennui. Then follow the 1790, 1812, 1847, and 1849 citations.
I presume the intent is to express that ennui means the same thing, "a cause of ennui", in both the sense of Personification and in the concrete sense.
As I was stumbling about in old 'poetry' I found this - Ennui Personified and other forms.
It's a poem by William Hayley Esq. A Charm for Ennui. A Matrimonial Ballad.
Snippet taken from The New Foundling Hospital for Wit: Being a Collection of Fugitive Pieces, in Prose and Verse, Not in Any Other Collection. With Several Pieces Never Before Published, Volumes 1-2, published in 1786, page 266.
And here is the OED1 printed version - OED1 and OED online are word for word the same.
