Mikhail Lomonosov wrote that the "bliss" (happiness) of the human race is highly dependent on the word. The word allows people to:
Build hail, build temples and ships, gang up on the enemy
Words, like people, are born, live, age, die. Over time, they can change meaning, reborn. Known to us as an insult, the word "creature" has evolved over the course of its existence. The meaning of the word "creature" has changed.
Interpretation in different dictionaries
The explanatory dictionary of Dahl in this case gives a link to the verb "create" - create, create, give being. Newer dictionaries of Ozhegov, Ushakov give two completely opposite meanings of this word. According to them, a creature is:
- a living being created by God;
- unworthy, despised, vile person.
Why did such different, mutually exclusive meanings arise?
Word history
The word "creature" is associated with religious philosophy. God created the world. He is a demiurge, creator. All that he created is God's creatures. In the Church Slavonic dictionary, this word means: peace, the whole human race, creation. It is found in the Bible in the nominative case 11 times. Initially, the "creatures" were people and animals, and the surrounding nature. In the future, the word refers only to animals. Perhaps then it acquired an offensive significance. When wild instincts wake up in a person, he behaves meanly, not in a Christian way, then he, like an animal, is a creature. This highlights the negative value. In disputes and quarrels, it sounds like a curse. In this case, the "creature" is an insult. But this is too straightforward.
Noah's Ark
“Every creature is paired,” we say, when we want to playfully emphasize the diversity of something, a mixture of objects. This phraseologism arose from the legend of Noah's Ark. The righteous Noah, to save himself from the flood, built an ark and took with him his family and many pairs of different animals. Seven pairs of animals were intended for the victim. The theme of Noah’s ark was popular in the 17th and 18th centuries when puppet booths were presented. Toys with a different set of animals from the ark were sold. In the 19th century in Russia such toys were made in Sergiev Posad. V. Mayakovsky in the comedy "Mystery Buff" plays on the themes of hell, paradise, flood. He placed “seven pairs of clean” and “seven pairs of unclean” in a fictional ark. The seven unclean pairs are workers who can destroy hell and paradise and create a new, just society.
In 1956, the performance Noah's Ark was staged at the Moscow Puppet Theater Obraztsova . It was a sharp satire on the existing social order.
Literature
The use of the word "creature" in the literature gives the narrative a different emotional connotation. These are “two-legged creatures of millions” by Pushkin, “trembling creatures” by Dostoevsky, “various tribes of creatures” by Krylov. Dmitry Karamazov also calls himself talking to Alyosha. In each context, the word "creature" carries a special semantic load. This may be a slight neglect, and disgust, and an insult.
Cinema
The word "creature" is a vile, dangerous, mysterious creature. “Fantastic creatures and their habitats” - this is the name of the film in 2016 in the Russian translation. The translators emphasized, thus translating the word beast (beasts) in the original title. A Maglozologist from the world of Hogwarts travels around the world of people to protect them from magical creatures and vice versa.
In the 2004 film The Creature, scientists created a unique super-being from a space meteorite, an ideal weapon that can destroy everything around and feeds on human blood. To fight it, a detachment is created that tries to destroy it.
Fans of original games and puzzles can take part in the quest "Creature". His scenario is this: a group of diggers disappeared in the Moscow dungeons. It is necessary to save them, but those who went to the aid are pursued by a terrible invisible creature, a creature that has settled in Moscow tunnels.
You can list many different cases of the use of this word. There are stable expressions "creature dumb", "creature spineless." They came from medieval scholars exploring the animal kingdom. Those believed that a creature is any living creature. Initially, these expressions applied to fish and insects. Now we are talking about a man weak-willed and weak.