Creature definition

Existing since in the original sense of “a created thing”, borrowed via from creatura, from creare.

A created thing, whether animate or inanimate.
Anything created or not self-existent.
A living being that moves of its own volition.
An animal or human.
A being subservient to or dependent upon another.

In order to remind the Kapos they were just his creatures, the concentration camp commandant regularly gave one of them an arbitrary lashing on the bare; any willfullness meant replacing by a new, humbler creature

For an explanation of the specialised use of the alternative spelling creäture, see its entry’s usage notes.