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🐾 Animal instincts 🧑 Being mortal
creatureliness

creatureliness

9.6
The fact of being a living being with human needs and limits
  • noun
  • /ˈkriːtʃərliˌnəs/
  • Formal
translation icon : humanidad
  • In reflecting on Francis's life, he indicated that one can know this truth only by accepting one's poverty or creatureliness, acknowledging one's contingency and thus humility, and accepting death as the path into the heart of the mystery of God.

Examples

  • "The clearest sensation that a human being has when he experiences the holy is an overpowering and overwhelming sense of creatureliness.

    Blog text (29)

  • Human beings, therefore, need to respect nature in its specific creatureliness.

    Academic text (1991)

  • Christian belief maintains that creatures do not lose their creatureliness in the afterlife.

    Academic text (2006)

  • 43. It allows one better to acknowledge and accept the limitations of one's "creatureliness," and so really to see and love other troubled, incarnated selves and to enjoy the natural pleasures of human life with less anxiety and diversion.

    Academic text (1997)

  • By embracing our creatureliness, we can better appreciate the beauty of nature and our place within it.

  • Understanding our own creatureliness helps us connect more deeply with the struggles and needs of others.

  • Meditating on our creatureliness reminds us of our shared vulnerabilities and the importance of community.

Synonyms

humanness
vscreatureliness
5 4.6

The feelings, faults, and kindness that belong to people

focuses on being a living being with needs and dependence
corporeity
vscreatureliness
  • Formal
9.9

Having a physical body instead of being only spiritual

emphasizes limits, needs, and dependence beyond mere physical form
earthliness
vscreatureliness
6.5

A quality of caring about physical and everyday life rather than spiritual things

focuses on the state of living with limitations, not worldly concern

Antonyms

immortality
73 7.2

A life that never ends

transcendence
3 9.7

Going beyond normal limits in ability or quality

How Dependent

helplessness
25 3.8
dependence
60 3.6
creatureliness
  • Formal
9.6
need
∞ 1.0

Surface Forms

creatureliness singular
creaturelinesses plural

Morphology

creatureliness = creaturely (semi-transparent) = creature + ly + ness

The formation is regular, but the philosophical/spiritual sense 'human limitations or dependence' is a culturally specialized meaning that may not be obvious to average learners.

Etymology

Creatureliness comes from creature, from the same root as create ('to make'), and so it points to being a 'created' person rather than a maker. That is why the word is used for the condition of being a living creature with limits, needs, and dependence on others or on larger forces.