creature

• creäture (archaic, chiefly literary and philosophy)

Existing since Middle English in the original sense of “a created thing”, borrowed via Old French, from Late Latin creātūra, from creō.[1] Displaced native Old English gesceap (“creature”).

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: krē'chə, IPA^(key): /ˈkɹiːt͡ʃə/
• (General American) enPR: krē'chər, IPA^(key): /ˈkɹiːt͡ʃəɹ/

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• enPR: krē.āʹtyo͝or, IPA^(key): /kɹiːˈeɪtjʊə/ (archaic)
• Rhymes: -iːtʃə(ɹ)

creature (plural creatures)

1. A living being; an animal or (sometimes derogatory) a human.

   He's a creature of habit.   insects and other creatures

   • 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. Often, their victims pay up rather than face the costs of a legal battle.

2. (now rare) A created thing, whether animate or inanimate; a creation.
   • 1633, John Donne, "Sapho to Philænis":

     Thoughts, my mindes creatures, often are with thee, / But I, their maker, want their libertie.

   • 1646, Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica, I.10:

     the natural truth of God is an artificial erection of Man, and the Creator himself but a subtile invention of the Creature.

   • 1922, Ben Travers, chapter 1, in A Cuckoo in the Nest‎:

     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.

3. A being subservient to or dependent upon another.
   • 1988, James McPherson, Battle Cry for Freedom, Oxford 2003, p. 240:

     they, 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.

• For an explanation of the specialised use of the alternative spelling creäture, see its entry’s usage notes.
• 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.

• See also Thesaurus:creature

• creature comfort
• (from dialectal forms) critter, creetur, cratur, craythur

• creature in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• creature in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

• ecarteur

• Rhymes: -ure

creature f

1. plural of creatura

creātūre

1. vocative masculine singular of creātūrus

Borrowed from Latin creātūra.

creature f

1. creature, being

This noun needs an inflection-table template.

• Dutch: creatuur

• “creature”, in Vroegmiddelnederlands Woordenboek, 2000
• “creature”, in Middelnederlandsch Woordenboek, 1929

From Old French criature, creature, from Latin creātūra; equivalent to createn +‎ -ure.

• creatur, creatour, creatoure, creater, creture, crature, cryature, criature

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

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.

• English: creature; critter; craytur
• Scots: creature, crayter

• “crēātūre (n.)” in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2019-02-18.

From Old French creator.

creature

1. Alternative form of creatour

Late Latin creātūra.

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

1. creature; being; entity

• Middle English: creature
• French: créature