Etymology Lesson: creature

The other day I was thinking about the word creature and that got me thinking about the word creator, so here is an etymology lesson for those.

Both words have the same PIE root, in Shipley’s it’s ker-(VI), which itself means “to grow,” and informs words like, crescent, increase, procreate, recruit, and accrue, and the name of the Roman goddess of agriculture, Ceres. (pictured)

Side note: my dear friend Sarah named one of her feline companions Ceres, only to find out later that Ceres was a boy, (R.I.P. Ceres! You were a big fluffy dummy and we miss you!)

For creator, ker-(VI) combines with the latin suffix -ator, which is basically the noun form of a verb that ends in -ate, in this case, create. (I think?  Latin suffixes perplex me, so maybe someone who has studied Latin can school me?) So, creator means “one who causes things to grow,” and creature means, “a thing that has been grown.”

The PIE ker- root variations are pretty vast, Shipley’s has seven distinct ones, with meanings like, “to turn,” “to burn,” “to scratch or cut,” “of or related to having horns,” “to cry out,” “to grow,” and “to destroy.”  It reminds me that PIE is at best a well-researched theory, but I suppose everything is.