/kree"ohl/ , n.
1. a person born in the West Indies or Spanish America but of European, usually Spanish, ancestry.
2. a person born in Louisiana but of usually French ancestry.
3. ( sometimes l.c. ) a person of mixed black and European, esp. French or Spanish, ancestry who speaks a creolized form of French or Spanish.
4. ( usually l.c. ) a creolized language; a pidgin that has become the native language of a speech community. Cf. pidgin .
5. the creolized French language of the descendants of the original settlers of Louisiana. Cf. Cajun .
6. See Haitian Creole .
7. ( usually l.c. ) Archaic. a black person born in the New World, as distinguished from one brought there from Africa.
adj.
8. ( sometimes l.c. ) of, pertaining to, or characteristic of a Creole or Creoles.
9. ( usually l.c. ) Cookery. indicating a spicy sauce or dish made esp. with tomatoes, peppers, onions, celery, and seasonings, and often served with rice.
10. ( sometimes l.c. ) bred or growing in a country, but of foreign origin, as an animal or plant.
[ 1595-1605; criollo
crioulo native, deriv. of criar to bring up creare; see CREATE ]