Critter

//ˈkɹɪtɚ// noun

noun ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A creature, an animal. Australia, US, endearing, usually

    "The San Juan market is Mexico City's most famous deli of exotic meats, where an adventurous shopper can hunt down hard-to-find critters such as ostrich, wild boar and crocodile."

  2. 2
    a regional term for ‘creature’ (especially for domestic animals) wordnet
  3. 3
    A small locomotive used in an industrial setting. US

    "One of the biggest challenges facing a railfan photographer is the correct identification of one manufacturer's "critter" locomotive from that of another competing builder."

Synonyms

All synonyms
an existenceanimalaurochsbeastbeastiebeef

Example

More examples

"There is a critter lurking under this rock."

Etymology

First attested 1815, from a dialectal pronunciation of creature.

Related phrases

crispy crittercrotch critter

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.