Etymologically
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creatura

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [kre.aːˈtuː.ra], [kre.aːˈtuː.raː][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [kre.aˈtuː.ra], [kre.aˈtuː.ra][1]

Forms

creātūra f (genitive creātūrae); first declension[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin creō (“to create, make”) + -tūra.[2][3][4] Wiktionary explains it as the feminine of the future participle used as a noun.[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Lewis & Short's first example is Tertullian's Apologeticum, where it means a created thing, a creature.[3][4]

Semantic evolution

It is a Late and Christian Latin word, used only of concrete things:[3] a created being or thing, and the whole of creation, as in the Vulgate's Dominus totius creaturae (“Lord of all creation”, Judith 9:17) and Christ as principium creaturae Dei (Revelation 3:14).[3] Prudentius has it in his Hamartigenia,[3] and Commodian scans its ⟨a⟩ short in verse.[2] A Merovingian Christian inscription spells it criatura.[2]

Medieval Latin kept both senses, “creation” and “creature”,[5][6] and English took the word from Old French around 1300 as creature, “anything created”.[7]

Timeline

  • c. 160–220 AD – Tertullian uses it of created things.[3][4]
  • 348/49–c. 413 AD – Prudentius uses it.[3][4]
  • 390–406 AD – The Vulgate uses it for creatures and for creation.[3][4]
  • c. 1300 – English borrows creature from Old French.[7]

Meanings

Noun

  1. (Late Latin) A created thing or being, a creature.[3][5][6][1]
  2. (Late Latin) Creation, all that is created.[3][5][1]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  4. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
  5. ^ a b c Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
  6. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
  7. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com