entry
creative
/kriˈeɪtɪv/Able to invent or produce original ideas
From Latin create (To make).
from Latin creō. Equivalent to create + -ive. Displaced native Old English orþanclīċ.
from Late Latin creātīvus
Word Ancestry
from Latin creō. Equivalent to create + -ive. Displaced native Old English orþanclīċ.
from Late Latin creātīvus
At first glance, creative sounds like a tidy modern compliment, but its oldest ingredient is a Latin verb, creō, meaning “make” or “bring forth”—even “beget.” Roman ears could therefore hear creation as something closer to causing life or growth than merely having a clever idea. The adjective arrived in English in the 1670s, but its artistic glow came later: Wordsworth helped establish creative as “imaginative” in 1816, and creative writing appears by 1848. Its suffix, -ive, is a linguistic little machine that turns actions into tendencies: create becomes “having a habit or power of creating.” The same Latin family also reaches toward crescere, “to grow,” and Ceres, the goddess whose name survives in cereal—so a creative person is, etymologically speaking, someone who makes things grow. Think of creative as “the growing-making one”: not just an inventor, but a cultivator of possibilities.
The Story
At first glance, creative sounds like a tidy modern compliment, but its oldest ingredient is a Latin verb, creō, meaning “make” or “bring forth”—even “beget.” Roman ears could therefore hear creation as something closer to causing life or growth than merely having a clever idea. The adjective arrived in English in the 1670s, but its artistic glow came later: Wordsworth helped establish creative as “imaginative” in 1816, and creative writing appears by 1848. Its suffix, -ive, is a linguistic little machine that turns actions into tendencies: create becomes “having a habit or power of creating.” The same Latin family also reaches toward crescere, “to grow,” and Ceres, the goddess whose name survives in cereal—so a creative person is, etymologically speaking, someone who makes things grow. Think of creative as “the growing-making one”: not just an inventor, but a cultivator of possibilities.
Modern Usage
A person whose work or identity centers on producing original ideas or art
Notable References
- Steve Martin is a true creative
Kin & Kindred
From 'create'·To make, bring forth, produce, or bring into being
Derived Terms
English words from this root
From '-ive'·Pertaining to, tending to, or serving to do
Derived Terms
English words from this root