Noun

(en noun)

Any animal other than a human; usually only applied to land vertebrates, especially large or dangerous four-footed ones.

(more specific)  A domestic animal, especially a bovine farm animal.

*

Boxer was an enormous beast , nearly eighteen hands high, and as strong as any two ordinary horses put together.

*{{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham), title=(The China Governess)

, chapter=7 citation , passage=‘Children crawled over each other like little grey worms in the gutters,’ he said. ‘The only red things about them were their buttocks and they were raw. Their faces looked as if snails had slimed on them and their mothers were like great sick beasts whose byres had never been cleared. […]’}}

A person who behaves in a violent, antisocial or uncivilized manner.

(slang) A large and impressive automobile.

(slang, prisons) A sex offender.

* 1994 , Elaine Player, Michael Jenkins, Prisons After Woolf: Reform Through Riot (page 190)

Shouts had been heard: 'We're coming to kill you, beasts .' In desperation, Rule 43s had tried to barricade their doors

* 1994 , Adam Sampson, Acts of Abuse: Sex Offenders And the Criminal Justice System (page 83)

For many prisoners and in many prisons, antipathy towards 'nonces' or 'beasts' is little more than an idea

(figuratively) Something unpleasant and difficult.

* 2000 , Tom Clancy, The Bear and the Dragon , Berkley (2001), ISBN 9780425180969, page 905:

Even unopposed, the natural obstacles are formidable, and defending his line of advance will be a beast of a problem."

* 2006 , Heather Burt, Adam's Peak , Dundurn Press (2006), ISBN 9781550026467, page 114:

He'd be in the hospital a few days — broken collarbone, a cast on his arm, a beast of a headache — but fine.

* 2011 , :

And, oh, poor Atlas / The world's a beast of a burden / You've been holding up a long time

Noun

(en noun)

A meaning of a word or phrase that is suggested or implied, as opposed to a denotation, or literal meaning. A characteristic of words or phrases, or of the contexts that words and phrases are used in.

The connotations of the phrase "you are a dog" are that you are physically unattractive or morally reprehensible, not that you are a canine.

A technical term in logic used by J. S. Mill and later logicians to refer to the attribute or aggregate of attributes connoted by a term, and contrasted with denotation .

The two expressions "the morning star" and "the evening star" have different connotations but the same denotation (i.e. the planet Venus).