creator
(kriːˈeɪtə(r))
Forms: 3–4 -ur, 3–6 -ure, 3–7 -our, 4–5 -oure, 4– -or.
[ME. and AF. creatour, -ur = OF. creator, -ur, -our, later -eur, of learned or liturgical formation, ad. L. creātōr-em. The pop. OF. word was creere, criere.]
1. The Supreme Being who creates all things. (In OE. scieppend.)
| c 1290 S. Eng. Leg. I. 111/174 For-to serui is creatour. a 1300 Cursor M. 1119 (Cott.) Þar-wit com our creature [v.r. creatour] For to spek wit þat traiture. c 1386 Chaucer 2nd Nun's T. 49, The creatour of euery creature. c 1489 Caxton Blanchardyn xxxv. 133 God, my swete creatour. a 1533 Ld. Berners Huon cxxii. 436 Prayse be to our lorde god my creature. 1611 Bible Isa. xl. 28 The Creatour of the ends of the earth. 1667 Milton P.L. x. 486 Him by fraud I have seduc'd From his Creator. 1862 Ruskin Munera P. (1820) 4 Human nature, as its Creator made it. |
2. a. gen. One who, or that which, creates or gives origin to.
| 1579 Fulke Heskin's Parl. 154 We haue learned of their owne writers..that a Priest is..the creator of his creator. 1598 B. Jonson Ev. Man in Hum. ii. ii, Translated thus from a poor creature to a creator; for now must I create an intolerable sort of lies. 1641 Milton Ch. Govt. i. v, Since it thus appears that custom was the creator of prelaty. 1641 R. Brooke Eng. Episc. i. vii. 35 Winchester was not the first that..professed such universal Obedience to his Creator the Pope. 1818 Cruise Digest (ed. 2) III. 456 If the creator of the use had a fee simple in the land. 1871 Tyndall Fragm. Sc. (1879) II. xiv. 350 Just as little as the Voltaic battery is the animal body a creator of force. |
b. One who ‘creates’ a dramatic character or role. (Cf. creation 5 b.)
| 1872 Gentl. Mag. June 715 Her representation had always this want of dramatic propriety for those who had witnessed the original creator of the part. |
c. One who ‘creates’ or designs a costume, etc. (see create v. 2 d, creation 5 c).
| 1901 Westm. Gaz. 23 May 3/1 Everything seemed so absolutely simple, and yet so absolutely impossible to any other creator. |
Hence creˈatoress = creatress.
| 1827 Westm. Rev. VII. 331 note, Luonto-Luonot, Nature, the Creatoress, Kawe's wife. |