demon

Alternative forms

• (now chiefly in reference to the ancient Greek spirit): daimon, daemon, dæmon

Noun

demon (plural demons)

1. An evil supernatural spirit.
   1. An evil spirit resident in or working for Hell; a devil. [from 10th c.]
      • 2007 December 2, April D. DeConick, “What the Gospel of Judas really says”, in The New York Times‎, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 23 November 2011, Essay‎:

        So what does the Gospel of Judas really say? It says that Judas is a specific demon called the "Thirteenth." In certain Gnostic traditions, this is the given name of the king of demons - an entity known as Ialdabaoth who lives in the 13th realm above the earth. Judas is his human alter ego, his undercover agent in the world. These Gnostics equated Ialdabaoth with the Hebrew Yahweh, whom they saw as a jealous and wrathful deity and an opponent of the supreme God whom Jesus came to earth to reveal.
        Whoever wrote the Gospel of Judas was a harsh critic of mainstream Christianity and its rituals. Because Judas is a demon working for Ialdabaoth, the author believed, when Judas sacrifices Jesus he does so to the demons, not to the supreme God. This mocks mainstream Christians' belief in the atoning value of Jesus' death and in the effectiveness of the Eucharist.

   2. (now chiefly historical) A false god or idol; a Satanic divinity. [from 10th c.]
   3. A very wicked or malevolent person; also (in weakened sense) a mischievous person, especially a child. [from 16th c.]
   4. A source (especially personified) of great evil or wickedness; a destructive feeling or character flaw. [from 17th c.]

      The demon of stupidity haunts me whenever I open my mouth.

   5. (in the plural) A person's fears or anxieties. [from 19th c.]
      • 2013 January 21, The Guardian:

        After a short spell on an adult psychiatric ward, she decided to find her own way to deal with her demons.

2. A neutral supernatural spirit.
   1. A person's inner spirit or genius; a guiding or creative impulse. [from 14th c.]
      • c. 1606–1607 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Anthonie and Cleopatra”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene iii]:

        Oh Anthony […] Thy Dæmon that thy spirit which keepes thee, is Noble, Couragious, high vnmatchable.

      • 2000, Phillip Pullman, The Amber Spyglass:

        “You saw her. And I picked her up,” Lyra said, blushing, because of course it was a gross violation of manners to touch something so private as someone else's dæmon.

   2. (Greek mythology) A tutelary deity or spirit intermediate between the major Olympian gods and mankind, especially a deified hero or the entity which supposedly guided Socrates, telling him what not to do. [from 16th c.]
   3. A spirit not considered to be inherently evil; a (non-Christian) deity or supernatural being. [from 19th c.]
   4. A hypothetical entity with special abilities postulated for the sake of a thought experiment in philosophy or physics.
      • 1874, William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin, “Kinetic Theory of the Dissipation of Energy” in Nature 9, 441-444:

        Let the orders now be that each demon is to stop all molecules from crossing his area in either direction except 100 coming from A, arbitrarily chosen to be let pass into B, and a greater number, having among them less energy but equal momentum, to cross from B to A.

3. Someone with great strength, passion or skill for a particular activity, pursuit etc.; an enthusiast. [from 19th c.]

   He’s a demon at the card tables.

   • 2021 May 29, David Hytner, “Chelsea win Champions League after Kai Havertz stuns Manchester City”, in The Guardian‎:

     Chelsea defended like demons to snuff out Manchester City but this was a perfectly calibrated triumph, built upon a structured attacking approach, choosing the right moments to transition, and illuminated by the smoothness of Havertz’s technique.

4. (card games) A type of patience or solitaire (card game) played in the UK and/or US. [from 19th c.]

   Coordinate term: Canfield

   • 1924, EM Forster, A Passage to India, Penguin, published 2005, page 89:

     ‘That's much the best feeling to have.’ She dealt out the first row of ‘demon’.

5. Any of various hesperiid butterflies of the genera Notocrypta and Udaspes.

Noun

demon (plural demons)

1. (physics) Acronym of distinct electron motion particle: A quasiparticle, a type of massless neutral electron excitation associated with superconductivity.

Further reading

• Pines' demon on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Alternative forms

• daemon, dæmon

Noun

demon (plural demons)

1. (computing) Alternative spelling of daemon

Descendants

• English: demon

References

• “dēmōn, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-04-25.

Derived terms

• demonisere

Related terms

• demonisk

Derived terms

• demonisere

Related terms

• demonisk