Giving a thing, an animal or an abstract idea actions, feelings or speech proper to a person.
In Crime and Punishment
the terrible word, like the bolt on the door that day, kept jumping on his lips: it was about to escape, he had only to let it go, he had only to utter it!
The word “kept jumping” on his lips and “was about to escape,” as if it had a will of its own. The image makes the confession a living being struggling to get out of the mouth of the one holding it.