Monster

How to spell monster

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce monster

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does monster mean?

1. nounA large, frightening imaginary creature.
2. nounA person regarded as inhumanly cruel or wicked.
3. adjectiveExtraordinarily large; used informally before a noun.

Monster in a sentence

• noun

  The children were sure a monster was hiding under the bed.

• noun

  The newspaper called the killer a heartless monster.

• adjective

  The band played to a monster crowd at the festival.

• noun

  The film features a giant monster rising out of the sea.

• noun

  The novel's villain is a cold and calculating monster.

• adjective

  They signed a monster contract worth millions.

Where does monster come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word comes from the Latin monstrum, which originally meant a divine omen or portent, something unnatural sent by the gods to warn people of trouble ahead. That noun was built on the verb monere, meaning 'to warn' or 'to remind', the same root that gives us 'monitor' and 'admonish'. Because such portents were often imagined as strange, deformed, or terrifying creatures, the sense gradually shifted from 'warning sign' to 'unnatural beast'. English took the word in the early 1300s through Old French monstre, keeping the Latin -str- cluster that still trips writers who want to insert an extra vowel. By Shakespeare's day it could describe both a fearsome creature and a person of monstrous cruelty, and only much later did the playful sense of 'enormous thing' attach itself.

How the word is built

• monstr- (from Latin monstrum: a portent, warning)
• -er (noun ending shaped in English)