subcreativeadj.

1832 Millennial Harbinger 3 100 Their philosophy concerning my being and perfections,..represents me as a deity of subcreative power, an independent dependant, originating and originated, creating and created.

1860 O. W. Holmes Professor at Breakfast-table ii. 43 The independent will of the ‘subcreative centre’, as my heretical friend has elsewhere called man.

1908 C. C. Moore Tamám iv. 203 Since Leviathan was to have no lineal descendants, he was clothed with a kind of sub-creative power.

1947 J. R. R. Tolkien in C. S. Lewis Ess. presented to C. Williams 71 To many, Fantasy, this sub-creative art which plays strange tricks with the world and all that is in it..has seemed suspect, if not illegitimate.

1974 R. Helms Tolkien's World vi. 122 As artist, he is incomplete, impotent, without the presence of the other element in sub-creative activity—his community.

1989 M. O. Tunnell Prydain Comp. at Other worlds Alexander's subcreative world of Prydain is a mixture of the real and the imaginary.

2009 S. M. McDonough Christ as Creator iv. 90 Adam's subcreative role could be seen as patterned after the Messiah's creative role.

?1951 J. R. R. Tolkien Lett. (1991) 148 The Light of Valinor (derived from light before any fall) is the light of art undivorced from reason, that sees things both scientifically (or philosophically) and imaginatively (or subcreatively).

1998 Third Way Mar. 23/2 The providential nature of creation means that it can be used ‘sub-creatively’ for our good. So, sand can be turned into glass or silicon chips.

2005 Medievalia & Humanistica n.s. 31 138 Mary E. Zimmer..finds a Christian-Neoplatonic ‘verbal magic’ at work in The Lord of the Rings, a magic in which the characters sub-creatively alter their reality.