beast
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /biːst/
rhymes: -iːst
Forms: form: beasts
form: beest
Etymology: From Middle English beeste, beste, from Old French beste (French bête), from Latin bēstia (“animal, beast”); many cognates – see bēstia.
Senses: examples: text: Whatsoever parteth the hoof, and is clovenfooted, and cheweth the cud, among the beasts, that shall ye eat.
ref: 1611, “Leviticus 11:3”, in King James Version:
glosses: An animal, especially a large or dangerous land vertebrate.
examples: text: […] it always had the making of a fine beast about it, but up to the time I had it up here in a stall by itself it did not get the chance to make any headway [ie, fatten], all its mates were down on it and it never seemed to fill itself. […] A big framed beast takes a lot of food — expensive food at that [—] to keep it doing […]
ref: 1908 September 21, “The fattening beast”, in Mark Lane Express Agricultural Journal, page 340:
text: Boxer was an enormous beast, nearly eighteen hands high, and as strong as any two ordinary horses put together.
ref: 1943 November – 1944 February (date written; published 1945 August 17), George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], Animal Farm […], London: Secker & Warburg, published May 1962, →OCLC:
text: ‘Children crawled over each other like little grey worms in the gutters,’ he said. ‘The only red things about them were their buttocks and they were raw. Their faces looked as if snails had slimed on them and their mothers were like great sick beasts whose byres had never been cleared.[…]’
ref: 1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 7, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC:
glosses: An animal, especially a large or dangerous land vertebrate.
A domestic animal, especially a bovine farm animal.
qualifier: more specifically
raw_tags: in Commonwealth English
examples: text: Language is what separates man and beast.
glosses: An animal, especially a large or dangerous land vertebrate.
All non-human animals seen as a group.
glosses: An animal, especially a large or dangerous land vertebrate.
A monstrously unusual and dangerous animal.
synonyms: monster
glosses: A person who behaves in a violent, antisocial or uncivilized manner.
examples: text: That is a beast of a stadium.
text: The subwoofer that comes with this set of speakers is a beast.
glosses: Anything regarded as larger or more powerful than one of its normal size or strength.
glosses: Someone who is particularly impressive, especially athletically or physically.
examples: text: Shouts had been heard: 'We're coming to kill you, beasts.' In desperation, Rule 43s had tried to barricade their doors[…]
ref: 1994, Elaine Player, Michael Jenkins, Prisons After Woolf: Reform Through Riot, page 190:
text: For many prisoners and in many prisons, antipathy towards 'nonces' or 'beasts' is little more than an idea[…]
ref: 1994, Adam Sampson, Acts of Abuse: Sex Offenders And the Criminal Justice System, page 83:
glosses: A sex offender.
examples: text: […] Even unopposed, the natural obstacles are formidable, and defending his line of advance will be a beast of a problem."
ref: 2000, Tom Clancy, The Bear and the Dragon, Berkley, published 2001, →ISBN, page 905:
text: He'd be in the hospital a few days — broken collarbone, a cast on his arm, a beast of a headache — but fine.
ref: 2006, Heather Burt, Adam's Peak, Dundurn Press, published 2006, →ISBN, page 114:
glosses: Something unpleasant and difficult.
examples: text: Now, the nucleus of a heavy element is a very peculiar beast.
ref: 2003, John Derbyshire, Prime Obsession: Bernhard Riemann and the Greatest Unsolved Problems in Mathematics:
text: 'Lucy Leave', also known as 'Lucy Lea in Blue Tights', is a stranger beast altogether. Musically it is as derivative as everything else the band was playing at this time
ref: 2010, Rob Chapman, A Very Irregular Head: The Life of Syd Barrett, page 65:
text: But Wasting Light, recorded analog to tape (API 1608 32track, two Studer 827s) with no computers, not even to mix or master, is an entirely different beast.
ref: 2012, Kylee Swenson Gordon, Electronic Musician Presents the Recording Secrets Behind 50 Great Albums:
text: Murder is a stranger beast than suicide, although the end result of both is the same.
ref: 2017, Riley Sager, Final Girls, page 141:
glosses: A thing or matter, especially a difficult or unruly one.
Hyponyms: beast of burden
beast of draft
beast of draught
beast of prey
beast of venery
cattle beast
gripping beast
hype beast
minibeast
saddle beast
shebeast
shitbeast
wonder-beast
wonderbeast
Derived terms: sense: terms derived from beast (noun)
word: beastdom
sense: terms derived from beast (noun)
word: beasten
sense: terms derived from beast (noun)
word: beast fable
sense: terms derived from beast (noun)
word: beast-gate
sense: terms derived from beast (noun)
word: beasthood
sense: terms derived from beast (noun)
word: beastie
sense: terms derived from beast (noun)
word: beastify
sense: terms derived from beast (noun)
word: beastish
sense: terms derived from beast (noun)
word: beastkeeper
sense: terms derived from beast (noun)
word: beastkind
sense: terms derived from beast (noun)
word: beastlike
sense: terms derived from beast (noun)
word: beastling
sense: terms derived from beast (noun)
word: beastly
sense: terms derived from beast (noun)
word: beastman
sense: terms derived from beast (noun)
word: beastmaster
sense: terms derived from beast (noun)
word: beastmistress
sense: terms derived from beast (noun)
word: beast mode
sense: terms derived from beast (noun)
word: beastship
sense: terms derived from beast (noun)
word: beast with two backs
sense: terms derived from beast (noun)
word: beauty and the beast
sense: terms derived from beast (noun)
word: bebeast
sense: terms derived from beast (noun)
word: belly of the beast
sense: terms derived from beast (noun)
word: big beast
sense: terms derived from beast (noun)
word: different beast
sense: terms derived from beast (noun)
word: hambeast
sense: terms derived from beast (noun)
word: hosebeast
sense: terms derived from beast (noun)
word: hypebeast
sense: terms derived from beast (noun)
word: king of beasts
sense: terms derived from beast (noun)
word: lobola-beast
sense: terms derived from beast (noun)
word: mark of the beast
sense: terms derived from beast (noun)
word: merbeast
sense: terms derived from beast (noun)
word: nature of the beast
sense: terms derived from beast (noun)
word: neatbeast
sense: terms derived from beast (noun)
word: Number of the Beast
sense: terms derived from beast (noun)
word: obeast
sense: terms derived from beast (noun)
word: shitbeast
sense: terms derived from beast (noun)
word: starve the beast
sense: terms derived from beast (noun)
word: thunder beast
sense: terms derived from beast (noun)
word: unbeast
sense: terms derived from beast (noun)
word: unicorn beast
sense: terms derived from beast (noun)
word: werebeast
Related terms: sense: terms related to beast (noun)
word: bestial
sense: terms related to beast (noun)
word: bestiality
sense: terms related to beast (noun)
word: bestiary
sense: terms related to beast (noun)
word: bête noire
sense: terms related to beast (noun)
word: bêtise
sense: terms related to beast (noun)
word: hartebeest
sense: terms related to beast (noun)
word: wildebeest
word: belluine