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monster

Pronunciation: /ˈmɒnstə(ɹ)/

The English word “monster” has 15 meanings listed here.

noun

  1. A terrifying and dangerous creature, especially one of an imaginary or fictional kind.
  2. A cruel, heartless, or antisocial person, especially a criminal.
  3. A badly behaved person, especially a child; a brat.
  4. A prodigy; someone very talented in a specific domain.
  5. Something very or unusually large.
  6. A deformed animal or person (especially, a severely deformed one); in previous centuries often taken as an ill omen at the time of its birth. (Offensive when applied to humans in modern usage.)
  7. A disabled person, especially a physically disabled person.
  8. A bizarre or whimsical creature.
  9. A non-player character that player(s) fight against in role-playing games; a mob

adjective

  1. Very large; worthy of a monster.
  2. Great; very good; excellent.

verb

  1. To make into a monster; to categorise as a monster; to demonise.
  2. To behave as a monster to; to terrorise.
  3. To harass.
  4. To play (a series of) non-player characters as directed, without having the responsibility of organising the game itself; generally not limited to playing literal monsters or hostile combatants.

Etymology

From Middle English monstre, from Old French monstre, mostre, moustre, from Latin mōnstrum. Displaced native Old English fīfel and Old English þyrs.

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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.