What is the literary device for giving a human un-human attributes? [duplicate]

What is the literary device for giving a human un-human attributes? For example, a picture of a woman driving a car really quickly saying "She's flying down that road!". What is that literary device?

Also, if this isn't actually a literary device, please let me know what it would be.

Solution 1:

The sentence

She's flying down that road!

could be employing several literary devices:

A flying car that's not actually cruising through the air is an example of hyperbole, an exaggeration accenting the high speed of the car.

Since it's the car she's driving rather than the woman herself that's in metaphoric flight, saying that "she" is flying is an example of metonymy, where something closely associated with another thing (like a driver) substitutes for the other thing (like a speeding car).

If, however, the car is meant by "she," then that's an example of personification or anthropo-morphism, where human characteristics are assigned to inanimates or human abilities like speech are given to animals incapable of it, like Bugs Bunny or countless other cartoon characters.

Zoomorphism is assigning animal characteristics to humans — or plants, I suppose — but since the woman is not "flying" on her own power, this isn't an appropriate term here.

Solution 2:

From Studiosity, Techniquely Correct: The Opposite Of Personification:

So what about the opposite situation, where we attribute animal qualities, characteristics or behaviours to humans? Is that a technique? Yes, indeed it is, and it is called Zoomorphism.

If human qualities can be attributed to animals and objects, and animal qualities can be attributed to humans and objects, that only leaves one remaining possible technique. Can the qualities of inanimate objects be attributed to humans, and animals? Yes, they can, and this technique is called chremamorphism.

From SoftSchools:

Zoomorphism is when animal characteristics are assigned to humans. This is the opposite of anthropomorphism (when animals are described as human).

Examples of Zoomorphism:

My brother eats like a horse.

It ruffled my grandmother's feathers when Mrs. Beach took home first prize in the pie contest.

From Arts Exploratory Writing:

Objectifying (Chremamorphism)

If personification is the technique of giving inanimate (things not alive) human characteristics, Chremamorphism is giving characteristics of an object to a person.

For example: "she shined upon him with her eyes" gives qualities of an object, like a star, to a person.

Personally, I like the 'technically correct terminology' just fine. But I tend to think of such literary devices as forms of confabulation, which according to Etymonline is rooted in the word for telling stories in a conversational mode (Latin, confabulari: to converse together). My reasoning is based on the fact that when people are regaling one another with stories, they tend to include hyperbole in the form of colorful exaggerations.

• You say she was flying down the road in her car? Stop that, you are confabulating!