beast
noun
Simple meaning
A large or wild animal.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
beestIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈbist
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
An animal, especially a large or dangerous land vertebrate.
chiefly in Commonwealth Englishmore specifically
A domestic animal, especially a bovine farm animal.
A monstrously unusual and dangerous animal.
A wild, or seemingly-wild, animal that roams free in a country where it is usually only found in zoos.
A thing or matter, especially a difficult or unruly one.
figuratively
Something unpleasant and difficult.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B1 · Intermediate
- Frequency
- Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: An animal, especially a large or dangerous land vertebrate.
Used this way, beast is a reasonably familiar word with a faintly unfavourable edge. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Slightly negative
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Moderate
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Critical or judgemental
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Nearby words
- animal , more casual, better suited to speech than writing
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use beast
- “The children were told a story about a mythical beast in the forest.”
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
An animal such as a donkey or ox or elephant used for transporting loads or doing other heavy work.
In an inhumane manner.
Large gregarious predatory feline of Africa and India having a tawny coat with a shaggy mane in the male.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: animal or especially a large
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.