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creature

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
See also: créature and creäture

English

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Alternative forms

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Etymology

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    Inherited from Middle English creature (“a created thing”), borrowed via Old French creature, from Late Latin creātūra, from creō.[1] By surface analysis, create +‎ -ure. Displaced native Old English ġesċeaft. Doublet of craythur and critter.

    Pronunciation

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    Noun

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    creature (plural creatures)

    1. (now rare) A thing or being that has been created; a creation. [from 14th c.]
      • 1633, John Donne, Sapho to Philænis:
        Thoughts, my mindes creatures, often are with thee, / But I, their maker, want their libertie.
      • 1646, Thomas Browne, chapter I, in Pseudodoxia Epidemica: […], London: […] T[homas] H[arper] for Edward Dod, […], →OCLC, 1st book, page 10:
        the natural truth of God is an artificial erection of Man, and the Creator himself but a subtile invention of the Creature.
      • 1718, John CLAGGETT, Arianism Anatomized: or, Animadversions on Mr. Thomas Chubb's book, intitled, The Supremacy of the Father asserted, etc, page 35:
        Must not then all understanding Creatures center in their Creator, as in the highest and best of Beings?
      • 1857, Frederick William Faber, The Creator and the Creature: Or the Wonders of Divine Love, page 92:
        For the creature tends to close union with the Creator, and union alone is the perfection of all true worship.
      • 1878, Mary (the virgin.), Spiritual exercises of Mary, revised by the bp. of Nottingham [E.G. Bagshawe]., page 194:
        We are creatures of a good, beneficent and loving Creator.
      • 1988, James McPherson, Battle Cry for Freedom, Oxford, published 2003, page 240:
        [T]hey, too, despite the appearance of being creatures rather than creators of the Union, could assert the prior sovereignty of their states, for each had formed a state constitution […] before petitioning Congress for admission to the Union.
      • 1994 January 1, Shirley C. Guthrie, Christian Doctrine, Westminster John Knox Press, →ISBN, page 169:
        Unlike the Creator, we creatures do not live forever.
      • 2020 August 28, Samuel D. Ferguson, The Spirit and Relational Anthropology in Paul, Mohr Siebeck, →ISBN, page 98:
        First, the relation between man-as-creature and God-the-Creator is more than a “static/positional” reality.
    2. (sometimes derogatory) A human. [from 14th c.]
      She's the most beautiful creature I've ever laid eyes on.
      • 1859, Ferna Vale, Natalie; or, A Gem Among the Sea-Weeds:
        But what would be the sentiment of uppertendom, when it should be rumored that the beautiful young creature, of the proud Clarence Delwood's choice, had stooped so low, as to maintain herself by her own hands?
      • 1913, Norman Lindsay, A Curate in Bohemia, Sydney: N.S.W. Bookstall Co., published 1932, page 72:
        Partridge discovered himself to be an amiable creature, with a disconcerting habit of occasionally muddling himself up with ethical questions of extreme profundity […] .
      • 1921, Ben Travers, chapter 1, in A Cuckoo in the Nest, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, published 1925, →OCLC:
        She was like a Beardsley Salome, he had said. And indeed she had the narrow eyes and the high cheekbone of that creature, and as nearly the sinuosity as is compatible with human symmetry.
      • 2013 June 8, “Obama goes troll-hunting”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8839, page 55:
        According to this saga of intellectual-property misanthropy, these creatures [patent trolls] roam the business world, buying up patents and then using them to demand extravagant payouts from companies they accuse of infringing them.
    3. A living being; an animal, monster, or alien, often as distinct from a human being. [from 14th c.]
      insects and other creatures
      • 1960, William Bittle Gray, Creatures of the Sea, New York : W. Funk:
        Urologists often want live sea horses for study of kidney disorders, for the sea horse is one of the few marine creatures with functioning kidneys.
      • 1963, Daniel Pratt Mannix, All Creatures Great and Small:
        But he began writing articles for The Saturday Evening Post, Esquire, and Colliers, and having finally chosen to become a journalist, has written All Creatures Great and Small about his first love […]
      • 2015 February 25, Nathan Kuzack, The Anguisher Creature, Nathan Kuzack:
        When it comes to this creature you have to unlearn everything you've ever learned about physiology.
      • 2018 June 18, Christine M. Korsgaard, Fellow Creatures: Our Obligations to the Other Animals, Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 27:
        One answer to that is “No”: sounds exist in the perspective of creatures who can hear, although sound waves would still be bouncing around in the absence of such creatures.
      • 2019 February 7, James Olstein, Odd Science – Incredible Creatures, Pavilion Children's, →ISBN:
        Creatures are fascinating. From miniscule bugs to great beasts of the deep, ferocious dinosaurs to cuddly-looking pandas.
      • 2020 October 24, Mike Jason, The Creature: What Is It?, Mike Jason:
        Tammy and Cherise heard the creature's roar. “I think they got him,” Tammy said.
      • 2022 November 8, Kay Chronister, Desert Creatures, Erewhon, →ISBN:
        The group stood motionless as an entire stream of creatures emerged from the canyons and then passed through, one after another. All were formed from the same undead materials […] .
    4. A being subservient to or dependent upon another. [from 16th c.]
      Synonym: puppet
      • 1861, Anthony Trollope, Framley Parsonage:
        "But it would show that you are not a creature in the duke's hands. That's my advice," said Mrs. Smith, with much spirit […] .
      • 2015, John Julius Norwich, Sicily, John Murray, published 2016, page 49:
        Caesar was now supreme. He had packed the Senate with his own creatures […] .
    5. (figuratively) A result or product of something; a (figurative) creation. [from 17th c.]
      He's a creature of circumstance.
      • 1651, Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan […], London: […] [William Wilson] for Andrew Crooke, […], →OCLC, 1st part (Of Man), page 53:
        that which appeareth in a Dream, to one that sleepeth; or in a Looking-glasse, to one that is awake; which, men not knowing that such apparitions are nothing else but creatures of the Fancy, think to be reall, and externall Substances; and therefore call them Ghosts […] .
      • 1980, William Maxwell, So Long, See You Tomorrow, page 13:
        We were both creatures of the period […] Heavy-businessman-father-and-the-oversensitive-artistic-son.

    Usage notes

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    Hyponyms

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    Derived terms

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    Collocations

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    Collocations
    • Adjectives often applied to "creature": evil, living, little, mythical, poor, strange, beautiful, wild, rational, marine, social, legendary, good, mysterious, curious, magical, dangerous, mythological, bizarre, monstrous, unhappy, huge, lowly, ugly, happy, unique, odd, weird, demonic, divine, imaginary, hideous, fabulous, nocturnal, angelic, political.

    Translations

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    References

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    1. ^ The Concise Oxford English Dictionary, eleventh edition, (Can we date this quote?)

    Further reading

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    Anagrams

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    Italian

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    Pronunciation

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    • IPA(key): /kre.aˈtu.re/
    • Rhymes: -ure
    • Hyphenation: cre‧a‧tù‧re

    Noun

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    creature f

    1. plural of creatura

    Latin

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    Participle

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    creātūre

    1. vocative masculine singular of creātūrus

    Middle Dutch

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    Etymology

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    Borrowed from Latin creātūra.

    Noun

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    creature f

    1. creature, being

    Inflection

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    Weak feminine noun
    singular plural
    nominative creature creaturen
    accusative creature creaturen
    genitive creature, creaturen creaturen
    dative creature, creaturen creaturen

    Descendants

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    • Dutch: creatuur

    Further reading

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    Middle English

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    Etymology 1

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      Borrowed from Old French creature, from Late Latin creātūra. By surface analysis, createn +‎ -ure.

      Alternative forms

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      Pronunciation

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      • IPA(key): /krɛːaːˈtiu̯r/, /krɛːaˈtiu̯r/, /krɛːaˈtuːr/
      • (reduced second syllable) IPA(key): /krɛːˈtiu̯r/, /ˈkrɛːətiu̯r/, /ˈkrɛːtur/
      • (accented second syllable) IPA(key): /krɛˈaːtiu̯r/, /ˈkraːtiu̯r/

      Noun

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      creature (plural creatures)

      1. Something that has been created; an entity or object.
      2. A living being or creature; an animal or beast.
      3. A human being (often as a term of self-abasement).
      4. (rare) The whole world, the totality of existence.
      5. (rare) The process of making or creation.
      Descendants
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      References
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      Etymology 2

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      See creatour (“creator”).

      Noun

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      creature

      1. alternative form of creatour

      Old French

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      Etymology

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        Learned borrowing from Late Latin creātūra.

        Noun

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        creature oblique singular, f (oblique plural creatures, nominative singular creature, nominative plural creatures)

        1. creature; being; entity

        Descendants

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