Ruff's Den
What is a Furry?
There are many different definitions to what a furry, or anthropomorphic person is, but in the end, it all boils down to just about the same thing.
Here is my definition: An anthropomorphic, or furry person is someone who shares the phsyical and/or mental characteristics of and animal and a human at the same time, or at consecutive frames in time.
Here is a definition I go at someone else's website. If it happens to be your definition, please let me know. It's like this: A furry is someone who loves animals so much, they want to be one.
Now being the nerd I am, I went and looked up the definition in a few other spots, so here are some of those definitions.
From Grolier Multimedia Encylopedia: anthropomorphism
Anthropomorphism is the assigning of human characteristics to animals, natural phenomena, inanimate objects, or abstract ideas. In literature, it takes several forms. In the FIGURE OF SPEECH called personification, an object or abstraction is endowed with human qualities or feelings. The literary strategy of ALLEGORY often employs anthropomorphic personages: in The Pilgrim's Progress, for example, abstract ideas take human form--thus Death, Piety, and Fellowship are human companions of the hero, Christian. In the beast FABLE, animals speak and evince human behavior and characteristics. George ORWELL's Animal farm (1945) is a modern example, as are animated cartoons. The pathetic fallacy, a speciality of sentimental poetry, endows natural phenomena and objects with human emotions.
In religion, anthropomorphism occurs when a divinity is described as having a human body (the hand of God, out of God's mouth), or exhibits human behavior (Jove's wrath).
From Webster's Second Edition New Twentieth Century Dictionary (c)1966:the attributing of human shape or characteristics to gods, objects, animals, etc.
And, from Thorndike Barnhart's Advanced Junior Dictionary(c) 1968:attributing human form or qualities to gods, or things. The religion of ancient Greece was anthropomorphic.
Another term for this quality is zoomorphic. From a different Webster Dictionary--
Zoomorphic- of or pertaining to a being conceived of as having the form
of an animal.
Thanks Dai!
Those are a few definitions of anthropomorphism. If I have violated any copyright laws, please contact me so that I can fix any problems. (better safe then sorry!)
/*By the way... If you want yet another definition of any of the words I used above, or any word on any website for that matter, you can get one very easily. Highlight the word, then right-click it. Now go to the 'define' feature and click it! The word's definition will be looked up, and displayed for your convienience! Try it!*/