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An Allegory of Immortality, c. 1540. Monster derives from the Latin monstrum, itself derived ultimately from the verb moneo ("to remind, warn, instruct, or foretell"), and denotes anything "strange or singular, contrary to the usual course of nature, by which the gods give notice of evil," "a strange, unnatural, hideous person, animal, or thing," or any "monstrous or unusual thing ...
Lich is an archaic English word for "corpse"; the gate at the lowest end of the cemetery where the coffin and funerary procession usually entered was commonly referred to as the lich gate. This gate was quite often covered by a small roof where part of the funerary service could be carried out. [3]
The word "kraken" in English (in the sense of the sea monster) derives from Norwegian: kraken or krakjen of the same sense, which are the definite forms of krake ("the krake"). [6] [7] According to a Norwegian dictionary, the root meaning of krake is "malformed or overgrown, crooked tree". [8]
This definition of the ghoul has persisted into modern times, with ghouls appearing in popular culture. [2] In early Arabic, the term is treated as a feminine word. Later, the term became treated as a masculine word, and ghouls became perceived as masculine creatures with Si'lat as feminine counterpart. [7]
Clockwise from left: Behemoth (on earth), Ziz (in sky), and Leviathan (under sea). From an illuminated manuscript, 13th century AD. Behemoth (/ b ɪ ˈ h iː m ə θ, ˈ b iː ə-/; Hebrew: בְּהֵמוֹת, bəhēmōṯ) is a beast from the biblical Book of Job, and is a form of the primeval chaos-monster created by God at the beginning of creation; he is paired with the other chaos-monster ...
A goblin is a small, grotesque, monstrous humanoid creature that appears in the folklore of multiple European cultures. First attested in stories from the Middle Ages, they are ascribed conflicting abilities, temperaments, and appearances depending on the story and country of origin, ranging from mischievous household spirits to malicious, bestial thieves.
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Bram Stoker considered using the title, The Undead, for his novel Dracula (1897), and use of the term in the novel is mostly responsible for the modern sense of the word. The word does appear in English before Stoker but with the more literal sense of "alive" or "not dead", for which citations can be found in the Oxford English Dictionary.