creature

plural creatures · alternative archaic literary creäture · alternative pronunciation spelling creacher · alternative pronunciation spelling creatur

1. A living being, such as an animal, monster, or alien.

   insects and other creatures

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   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?

   1859, Ferna Vale, Natalie; or, A Gem Among the Sea-Weeds

   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.

   1960, William Bittle Gray, Creatures of the Sea, New York : W. Funk

   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[…]

   1963, Daniel Pratt Mannix, All Creatures Great and Small

   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.

   2018 June 18, Christine M. Korsgaard, Fellow Creatures: Our Obligations to the Other Animals, Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 27

   Creatures are fascinating. From miniscule bugs to great beasts of the deep, ferocious dinosaurs to cuddly-looking pandas.

   2019 February 7, James Olstein, Odd Science – Incredible Creatures, Pavilion Children's, →ISBN

2. An unidentified, mysterious, and often monstrous animal or being.

   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, limbs and trunks and heads conveying nauseatingly lush […]

   2022 November 8, Kay Chronister, Desert Creatures, Erewhon, →ISBN

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   When it comes to this creature you have to unlearn everything you've ever learned about physiology. For example, when its appendages emerge to feed, they do so using incredible bursts of growth, quite unlike anything ever seen before […]

   2015 February 25, Nathan Kuzack, The Anguisher Creature, Nathan Kuzack

   Tammy and Cherise heard the creature's roar. “I think they got him,” Tammy said. “See, I told you. Everything's going to be alright.” Cherise smiled. The beast swung its other, human-like arm, knocking the entire barricade down, […]

   2020 October 24, Mike Jason, The Creature: What Is It?, Mike Jason

3. derogatorysometimesA human.

   He's a creature of habit.

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   Otherwise, Partridge discovered himself to be an amiable creature, with a disconcerting habit of occasionally muddling himself up with ethical questions of extreme profundity, sandwiched in between technicalities of Art, and the ordinary affairs of life, a process which was inclined to be a trifle confusing to the lay mind.

   1913, Norman Lindsay, A Curate in Bohemia, Sydney: N.S.W. Bookstall Co., published 1932, page 72

   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.

   1921, Ben Travers, chapter 1, in A Cuckoo in the Nest, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, published 1925, →OCLC

   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.

   2013 June 8, “Obama goes troll-hunting”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8839, page 55

4. uncommonlifestyleA created thing, whether animate or inanimate; a creation.

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

   1633, John Donne, Sapho to Philænis

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

   1646, Thomas Browne, chapter I, in Pseudodoxia Epidemica: […], London: […] T[homas] H[arper] for Edward Dod, […], →OCLC, 1st book, page 10

   Must not then all understanding Creatures center in their Creator, as in the highest and best of Beings? And must not this Creator then be eſſentially God? What Infatuation then is it, that leads Men to think of a Creature-Creator?

   1718, John CLAGGETT, Arianism Anatomized: or, Animadversions on Mr. Thomas Chubb's book, intitled, The Supremacy of the Father asserted, etc, page 35

   For the creature tends to close union with the Creator, and union alone is the perfection of all true worship.

   1857, Frederick William Faber, The Creator and the Creature: Or the Wonders of Divine Love, page 92

   We are creatures of a good, beneficent and loving Creator. We are made by this good God for Himself.

   1878, Mary (the virgin.), Spiritual exercises of Mary, revised by the bp. of Nottingham [E.G. Bagshawe]., page 194

   They only mean that we are creatures and not God. Unlike the Creator, we creatures do not live forever. Real evil enters the picture when we refuse to accept the finitude of human life […]

   1994 January 1, Shirley C. Guthrie, Christian Doctrine, Westminster John Knox Press, →ISBN, page 169

5. A being subservient to or dependent upon another.

   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.

   1988, James McPherson, Battle Cry for Freedom, Oxford, published 2003, page 240

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   "You know what I advise," said Mrs. Smith. "Ask Miss Dunstable to advance the money on the same security which the duke holds. She will be as safe then as he is now. And if you can arrange that, stand for the county against him; perhaps you may be beaten." "I shouldn't have a chance." "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; […]

   1861, Anthony Trollope, Framley Parsonage

   Synonyms: puppet