criatura

Forms

criatura f (plural criaturas)^[1] Old Spanish has criatura and less often creatura, which the DCECH cites from Berceo.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin creātūra (“thing created, creature”), which the DCECH counts as a learned word.^[3][5][1][6] The Tentative Dictionary files it under criar, the popular descendant of the same Latin verb, and Nascentes calls the Portuguese word semi-learned.^[4][7]

The Latin noun is late, found in Tertullian and the Vulgate; it is the feminine future participle of creō (“to create, make”) used as a noun.^[8][1] In Medieval Latin it meant both creation and creature.^[9] The verb first meant “to make grow”; de Vaan derives it from *krē-jā- and refers it to crēscō (“to grow”).^[10]

The REW notes that the Romance forms, among them Portuguese criatura, French créature and Italian creatura, widely mean “child”.^[11] The same word is Catalan criatura and Galician criatura, and English creature is a cognate.^[12][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Semejanza del mundo of about 1223, the earliest hit without a later copy, says that God puso enla tierra las criaturas que andan “put on the earth the creatures that walk”.^[13] The Fazienda de Ultra Mar, dated about 1200 and known from a 13th-century copy, translates the prophecy espandiré myo spiritu sobre toda la criatura “I will pour out my spirit upon every creature”.^[13] The sense “child” is already in Berceo's Milagros.^[3][4]

Semantic evolution

Alfonso X's prose uses the word for a newborn child, for a fetus and for the whole of creation: a stone of the Lapidario guarda la criatura de mal fasta tiempo del parir “keeps the unborn child from harm until the time of birth”.^[14] The Siete Partidas (1256–1263) set ten months as the longest a pregnant woman can carry the criatura.^[15] The DCECH notes that the distinction between criar and the learned crear is very late: criar still prevails for God's creation in the Golden Age.^[3][16]

Covarrubias in 1611 recorded the child while it is being raised, the simple man who is como vna criatura, and phrases such as no ay criatura en la plaça “there is not a living soul in the square”.^[17] The Diccionario de Autoridades defined it as everything that has being and is not God, then the small child, before birth and while being raised, and, by allusion, a person whom another has raised to rank and office.^[18] Modern dictionaries add imaginary beings and the affectionate vocative ¡criatura! to an adult who talks like a child.^[5][19][20]

Timeline

• c. 1200 – the Fazienda de Ultra Mar (in a 13th-century copy).^[13]
• c. 1215 – the Vida de Santa María Egipcíaca (in a 14th-century copy): El pecado non es criatura.^[13]
• c. 1223 – the Semejanza del mundo, the earliest hit without a later copy.^[13]
• 1220–1250 – the date the Breve diccionario gives.^[16]
• c. 1230 – Berceo's Vida de Santo Domingo calls the saint as a child la sancta criatura.^[15][13]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario uses it for a newborn child and a fetus.^[14]
• 1497 – an Aragonese inventory with the sense “child”.^[3]
• 1525 – the first record from the Americas, in Mexico City.^[21]
• 1611 – Covarrubias records no ay criatura “there is nobody”.^[17]
• 1726–1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades has the sense “protégé”.^[18]
• 1817 – the Academy's dictionary records the proverb criatura de un año saca la leche del calcaño.^[22]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology, Latin creatura.^[23]

Meanings

Noun

1. A young child, a baby: La criatura no dejó de llorar en todo el viaje.^[5][1]
2. A fetus (feto).^[5]
3. An adult who shows a child's naivety or inexperience, mostly in the vocative: ¡Pero criatura, cómo se te ocurre!^[5][20]
4. (philosophy, religion) A thing or being created; a creature; also figuratively, a character created by an author.^[5][19][1]
5. An imaginary or fantastic being: las criaturas del bosque encantado.^[19][20]
6. (rare) A protégé (hechura): a person who owes his post and fortune to another.^[5]

Related words

• crear
• criador
• criar
• Latin creātūra
• English creature
• Portuguese criatura

Usage notes

The Academy's dictionaries of the 19th century record the proverb criatura de un año saca la leche del calcaño, said of sturdy infants who suckle hard.^[22][24] Moliner notes llorar como una criatura “to cry like a baby” and ser una criatura “to be very young, or childlike”.^[19]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock
3. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 241
4. ^ a b c Boggs, R. S.; Kasten, Lloyd; Keniston, Hayward; Richardson, H. B. (1946), Tentative Dictionary of Medieval Spanish, 2 vols., Chapel Hill, N.C.
5. ^ a b c d e f g Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. criatura
6. ^ Lleal, Coloma (dir.), DICCA-XV: Diccionario del castellano del siglo XV en la Corona de Aragón, Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona, Grup d'Estudis d'Història de la Llengua (GHCL), https://ghcl.ub.edu/diccaxv
7. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro
8. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
10. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
11. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
12. ^ Alcover, Antoni M.; Moll, Francesc de B. (1930–1962), Diccionari català-valencià-balear, 10 vols., Palma de Mallorca: Moll
13. ^ a b c d e f Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. criatura
14. ^ a b Kasten, Lloyd A.; Nitti, John J.; Gago Jover, Francisco (2002–), Diccionario de la prosa castellana del Rey Alfonso X, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies (electronic edition 2024)
15. ^ a b Alonso Pedraz, Martín (1986), Diccionario medieval español: desde las Glosas Emilianenses y Silenses (s. X) hasta el siglo XV, 2 vols., Salamanca: Universidad Pontificia de Salamanca
16. ^ a b Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. criar
17. ^ a b Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 531
18. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 2, 658
19. ^ a b c d Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos
20. ^ a b c Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial
21. ^ Boyd-Bowman, Peter (2003), Léxico hispanoamericano 1493–1993, ed. Ray Harris-Northall and John J. Nitti, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies
22. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 253
23. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 306
24. ^ Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 220