créateur

Forms

créateur m (plural créateurs, feminine créatrice)^[1] Old French creatur and creator, with the nominative creere.^[2][3][1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin creātor (“one who creates, founder, father”), which in Christian Latin named God.^[2][4][5] The Latin noun is formed on the supine of creō (“to create”).^[6][5] Old French had a nominative creere beside the oblique form creator, from the Latin nominative stressed on the ⟨a⟩ and the accusative stressed on the ⟨o⟩.^[3] Wiktionary traces the modern form through Middle French createur.^[1]

Cognate with Italian creatore, Spanish criador and Portuguese criador.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Its first record is creatur in Philippe de Thaon's Comput (about 1119), meaning God as the one who created the world.^[2][5]

Semantic evolution

For six centuries the word was used of God, and Old French texts call him le creator.^[4][3] The secular sense “author of something new”, said of a writer or an artist, is relatively late: Voltaire wrote of Corneille in 1761 that he was a createur, and the Académie recorded the adjective in génie créateur in 1762.^[2][4] In the 20th century the noun came to mean the first performer of a role or a designer who creates products, as in fashion.^[5][7]

Timeline

• c. 1119 – Creatur appears in Philippe de Thaon's Comput for God.^[2]
• 1761 – Voltaire calls Corneille a createur, the first artistic use.^[2][4]
• 1762 – The Académie records the adjective in génie créateur.^[2][4]
• 20th century – It is used for the first performer of a role.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. (religion) Le Créateur: God, who made the world from nothing.^[7][8]
2. The author or founder of something new, such as a literary genre or a theory: la créatrice de cette école.^[7][9]
3. The first performer of a role.^[7][5]
4. A person who creates or produces things, an inventor or designer.^[5][3]

Adjective

1. creative, able to create: un esprit créateur.^[7][1]

Related words

• créer
• créature
• création
• Latin creātor

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Trésor de la langue française informatisé (2004), ATILF – CNRS & Université de Lorraine, atilf.fr/tlfi; electronic version of Imbs, Paul; Quemada, Bernard, eds. (1971–1994), Trésor de la langue française, Paris: CNRS / Gallimard
3. ^ a b c d e Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
4. ^ a b c d e Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
5. ^ a b c d e f g Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
6. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (2005), Le Grand Robert de la langue française, electronic version, Paris: Le Robert
7. ^ a b c d e Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
8. ^ Dictionnaire de français Larousse, larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais (accessed 2024)
9. ^ Dictionnaire Le Robert en ligne, dictionnaire.lerobert.com (accessed 2024)