creature [ME] The earliest recorded sense of creature in English is ‘anything created’, and the word is from Latin creatura ‘a created being’. This is the meaning the poet William Cowper (1731–1800) had in mind when he wrote in 1783, ‘The first boat or canoe that was ever formed…was a more perfect creature in its kind than a balloon at present.’ Create [LME] originally meant ‘to form out of nothing’. Recreation [LME] came via Old French from Latin recreare ‘create again, renew’, which gives the word the notion of ‘refreshment’.