maker

maker n Maker, creator, author denote one who brings something into being or existence. When written with an initial capital letter, all three terms designate God or the Supreme Being; without the capital they ascribe similar but not equivalent powers or effects to a person.

Maker typically implies a close and immediate relationship between the one who makes and the thing that is made. It implies the physical or figurative handling of material and individual or personal responsibility for what is turned out; hence, in religious use (as in hymns and prayers) God is usually called one's Maker

{

every soul, insisted Luther, stands in naked confrontation before its Maker— Bainton

}

Maker in such terms as king maker, a maker of men, a maker of phrases, a maker of poems, suggests the use of persons, words, or ideas as instruments by which one brings something into existence through one's own labor or effort

{

in every creative writer there is a touch of the poet, the maker, even if his medium is prose— Forster

}

Creator, on the other hand, seldom suggests either literal or figurative use or handling of materials; its leading implication is that of bringing into existence what the mind conceives and the will, as the mind's instrument, carries out. As applied to God, the term usually evokes the picture of Creation as presented in Genesis; the term is used, therefore, rather than Maker, when His omnipotence and the greatness of His works are stressed

{

and touched their golden harps, and hymning praised God and his works; Creator him they sung— Milton

}

In the same way creator is used of a man who brings into being something new, which has form in his mind or imagination before he gives it objective existence

{

a conservator, call me, if you please, not a creator nor destroyer— Browning

}

{

they are genuine creators: they do not describe nor interpret reality as much as construct it— Howard Moss

}

Author is applied to one who originates and who, therefore, is not only the source, or ultimate source, but the one responsible for a person's or thing's existence. It is applied to God chiefly in the phrase "the Author of one's being" when the reference is to the gift of life or its attendant circumstances

{

then casting up my eyes, thanked the Author of my being for the gift of that wild forest, those green mansions where I had found so great a happiness— Hudson

}

In reference to persons it is not only applied to a writer (see WRITER) but also to one (as a founder, an inventor, or an initiator) who brings something into existence

{

the policy of which he was principally the author— Belloc

}

{

the gay and bewitching ... coquette Célimène who is the author of all Alceste's woes— Alexander

}