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Monster
A monster is often a hideously grotesque animal or human, or a hybrid of both, whose appearance frightens and whose powers of destruction threaten the human world’s social or moral order.
Animal monsters are outside the moral order, but sometimes have their origin in some human violation of the moral law (e.g. in the Greek myth, Minos does not sacrifice the white bull Poseidon sent him to the god, so as punishment Poseidon makes Minos’ wife, Pasiphaë, fall in love with the bull, and she copulates with the beast, and gives birth to the man with a bull’s head, the Minotaur). Human monsters are those who by birth were never fully human (Medusa and her sisters) or who through some supernatural or unnatural act lost their humanity (werewolves, Frankenstein’s monster), and so who can no longer, or who never could, follow the moral law of human society.
Monsters pre-date written history, and the academic study of the particular cultural notions expressed in a society’s ideas of monsters is known as monstrophy.Monsters have appeared in literature and in feature-length films. Well-known monsters in fiction include Count Dracula, Frankenstein’s monster, werewolves, mummies, and zombies.
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Beast (noun)
Any animal other than a human; usually only applied to land vertebrates, especially large or dangerous four-footed ones.
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Beast (noun)
(more specific) A domestic animal, especially a bovine farm animal.
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Beast (noun)
A person who behaves in a violent, antisocial or uncivilized manner.
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Beast (noun)
A large or impressive thing or structure.
“That is a beast of a stadium.”
“The subwoofer that comes with this set of speakers is a beast.”
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Beast (noun)
Someone who is particularly impressive, especially athletically or physically.
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Beast (noun)
A sex offender.
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Beast (noun)
Something unpleasant and difficult.
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Beast (noun)
A thing or matter, especially a difficult or unruly one.
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Beast (verb)
to impose arduous exercises, either as training or as punishment.
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Beast (adjective)
great; excellent; powerful
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Monster (noun)
A terrifying and dangerous creature.
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Monster (noun)
A bizarre or whimsical creature.
“The children decided Grovyle was a cuddly monster.”
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Monster (noun)
An extremely cruel or antisocial person, especially a criminal.
“Get away from those children, you meatheaded monster!”
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Monster (noun)
A horribly deformed person.
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Monster (noun)
A badly behaved child, a brat.
“Sit still, you little monster!”
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Monster (noun)
Something unusually large.
“Have you seen those powerlifters on TV? They’re monsters.”
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Monster (noun)
A prodigy; someone very talented in a specific domain.
“That dude playing guitar is a monster.”
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Monster (noun)
a non-player character that player(s) fight against in role-playing game
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Monster (adjective)
Very large; worthy of a monster.
“He has a monster appetite.”
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Monster (adjective)
Great; very good; excellent.
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Monster (verb)
To make into a monster; to categorise as a monster; to demonise.
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Monster (verb)
To behave as a monster to; to terrorise.
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Monster (verb)
To harass.
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Beast (noun)
an animal, especially a large or dangerous four-footed one
“a wild beast”
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Beast (noun)
a domestic animal, especially a bovine farm animal
“mucking out and feeding the beasts is a big job”
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Beast (noun)
an animal as opposed to a human
“the gift of reason differentiates humanity from the beasts”
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Beast (noun)
an inhumanly cruel, violent, or depraved person
“sex beasts who are assaulting victims”
“he is a filthy drunken beast”
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Beast (noun)
an objectionable or unpleasant person or thing
“a scheming, manipulative little beast”
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Beast (noun)
a person’s brutish or untamed characteristics
“the beast in you is rearing its ugly head”
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Beast (noun)
a thing possessing a specified quality
“that much-maligned beast, the rave record”
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Monster (noun)
a large, ugly, and frightening imaginary creature
“a monster with the head of a hyena and hindquarters of a wolf”
“a world of fable, inhabited by other-worldly monsters”
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Monster (noun)
an inhumanly cruel or wicked person
“he was an unfeeling, treacherous monster”
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Monster (noun)
a rude or badly behaved person, typically a child
“he’s only a year old, but already he is a little monster”
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Monster (noun)
a thing of extraordinary or daunting size
“this is a monster of a book, almost 500 pages”
“a monster 36lb carp”
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Monster (noun)
a congenitally malformed or mutant animal or plant.
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Monster (verb)
criticize or reprimand severely
“my mum used to monster me for coming home so late”