Welcome, word lovers!
All too often, definitions escape us, but beastly words leave a lasting impression. This mnemonic menagerie brings words to life, ensuring that you’ll never forget how to recognize an Absquatulate, where to find the Bathybic, or why you shouldn’t let a Caterwaul follow you home. A celebration of vivid vocabulary, poetry, and illustration, these “creaturefied words” will fly, swim, and claw their way into your imagination, making creative creatures of us all.
Hi, I’m Aimee.
I was that kid with the coke-bottle glasses who ate up library books and devoured the dictionary for fun … and I am still, just older.
I’m also a recovering HR Consultant turned Freelance Editor and Writing Coach based in Oakland, CA, where I help writers of all ages discover the power of story and the confidence to tell their own.
Beastly Sources
All beastly words evolved from real words that have been recorded in a dictionary, but some are easier to track down than others. The "less endangered" words can be easily found on free online dictionaries or in common printed dictionaries, but the more obscure, endangered words are usually hiding in the giant, dusty old dictionaries in large libraries or on more comprehensive, subscription-based online dictionaries. Each of the beastly words on this site can be tracked to one of the following locations:
Dictionary.com
Merriam-Webster Unabridged Online Dictionary
Oxford English Dictionary Online