Creating

How to spell creating

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce creating

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does creating mean?

1. verbBringing something into existence, or producing or causing something.

Creating in a sentence

• The design team spent the afternoon creating a new logo for the brand.

• She enjoys creating detailed spreadsheets to track the household budget.

Where does creating come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This is the present participle of the verb 'create', which comes from the Latin verb creare, meaning 'to make', 'to bring into being', or 'to produce'. That Latin root carried a strong sense of growth and origination; it is related to crescere, 'to grow', and so the underlying idea was of causing something to come into existence and flourish. English absorbed 'create' in the late 1300s and early 1400s, partly through Old French and partly straight from Latin, originally in religious contexts describing the making of the world. The participle form simply adds the familiar -ing ending; the spelling keeps the 'e' of the root before the suffix, so the silent vowel cluster 'eati' is the small trap, since the word is pronounced with a clear two-vowel glide. The same creare root still surfaces in 'creature', 'recreation', and 'procreate', all of which share that idea of bringing something forth.

How the word is built

• creat- (from Latin creare: to make, bring forth)
• -ing (present participle suffix)