Meanings
- That creates again or in a new way.
Mutely each re-creative lay outpour’d / Its own revealings; / Youth, manhood, age, were momently restored, / With all their feelings.
1846, Horace Smith, “Prefatory Stanzas”, in The Poetical Works of Horace Smith, […], volume I, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, page 42 more examples
The hiſtorian only collects the matter of the day, and hands it to poſterity; but the antiquarian brings his treaſures from remote ages, and preſents them to this: he examines forgotten repoſitories, calls things back into exiſtence, which are paſt; counteracts the efforts of time, and of death; poſſeſſes ſomething like a re-creative power; collects the duſt of departed matter, moulds it into its preſtine ſtate, exhibits the figure to view, and ſtamps it with a kind of immortality.
1783, W[illiam] Hutton, “Gentlemen’s Seats”, in An History of Birmingham. […], 2nd edition, Birmingham, Warwickshire: […] Pearson and Rollason; [a]nd sold by R. Baldwin, […] B. White, […], →OCLC, pages 274–275One should always be careful, of course, not to confuse the creative artist with the re-creative one (as [Giuseppe] Verdi once remarked, that is the way to the abyss).
1989, Richard Osborne, “[Herbert] [v]on Karajan: Profile of a Musician”, in Conversations with Von Karajan (A Cornelia & Michael Bessie Book), 1st U.S. edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Row, →ISBN, pages 16–17
Origin
Cite this entry
re-creative. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/re-creative
“re-creative.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/re-creative. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “re-creative,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/re-creative.
Source: re-creative on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.