Meaning & use
monster
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Meanings
nouncountable
An imaginary creature that is large, ugly and frightening, found in stories and legends.
Grammar: Takes a plural: one monster, two monsters.
Patterns
- a monster from something
The children hid under the blanket when the monster appeared on screen.
Legends of a lake monster draw tourists to the Scottish highlands each summer.
In the story, the monster guarded the entrance to the cave.
nouncountabledisapprovingfigurative
A person who is extremely cruel, wicked or without pity.
Grammar: Figurative; the criticism is strong and often follows a serious crime.
Patterns
- a monster of something
Neighbors could not believe the quiet man was a monster.
The press called the dictator a monster.
Only a monster would leave an injured animal by the road.
nouncountableinformal
Anything unusually huge or powerful for its kind, often said with some admiration or fear.
Grammar: Informal; often used before a noun as an adjective-like word: a monster truck.
Patterns
- a monster of a something
He hit a monster of a shot down the fairway.
The storm was a real monster, flooding half the town.
They drove a monster truck in the parade.
Word forms
| plural | monsters |
|---|
Common combinations
- sea monster
- Old maps showed a sea monster off the coast.
- green-eyed monster
- The green-eyed monster of jealousy took hold of him.
- slay a monster
- The hero set out to slay a monster.
- create a monster
- By spoiling the child, they created a monster.
- monster of a storm
- We sheltered from a monster of a storm.
Synonyms and how they differ
- beast
- Beast suggests a wild animal-like creature, while monster often means something unnatural or imaginary.
- fiend
- Fiend stresses evil or demonic cruelty in a person and sounds more literary than monster.
- giant
- Giant stresses size only and is not necessarily frightening.
- brute
- Brute implies rough physical cruelty and strength, not a fantastical creature.
Opposites
Word family
- monstrous adjective
- very cruel or shocking, or enormous
- monstrosity noun
- something ugly or horrible, especially huge
- monstrously adverb
- extremely, in a shocking way
- demonstrate verb
- unrelated in meaning, from the Latin for showing; do not confuse
Commonly confused: monster or mansion?
monster vs mansion
Mansion is a large house, not a creature; the similar opening sound sometimes causes mix-ups.
Practice
The judge called the man a monster. Here, monster most nearly means a person who is ___.
Choose one answer.
Applied to a person, monster is a harsh insult for someone horribly cruel. Size alone would not justify the judge's wording.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “monster”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.