Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun An evil supernatural being; a devil.
  • noun A persistently tormenting person, force, or passion.
  • noun One who is extremely zealous, skillful, or diligent.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In Greek myth, a supernatural agent or intelligence, lower in rank than a god; a spirit holding a middle place between gods and men; one of a class of ministering spirits, sometimes regarded as including the souls of deceased persons; a genius: as, the demon or good genius of Socrates. Sometimes written daimon.
  • noun An evil spirit; a devil: from the belief of the early Christian world that all the divinities of the pagans were devils.
  • noun Figuratively, an atrociously wicked or cruel person; one characterized by demoniac passions or conduct.
  • noun [capitalized] A certain genus of Coleoptera.
  • noun In anthropology, a supernatural protector or helper. See manito and *nyarong.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Gr. Antiq.) A spirit, or immaterial being, holding a middle place between men and deities in pagan mythology.
  • noun One's genius; a tutelary spirit or internal voice.
  • noun An evil spirit; a devil.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun An evil spirit.
  • noun A fallen angel or Satanic divinity; a false god.
  • noun One’s inner spirit or genius, a daimon.
  • noun Greek mythology A spirit or lesser divinity between men and gods.
  • noun A foible; a flaw in a person’s character.
  • noun Someone of remarkable or diabolical energy or ability.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a cruel wicked and inhuman person
  • noun someone extremely diligent or skillful
  • noun an evil supernatural being

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, from Late Latin daemōn, from Latin, spirit, from Greek daimōn, divine power; see dā- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Ancient Greek δαίμων (daimōn, "god, goddess, divine power")

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Examples

Comments

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  • A demon is a ghoul's best friend ;^)

    December 20, 2006

  • “The McDonnell F3H Demon was a United States Navy carrier-based jet fighter aircraft. The successor to the F2H Banshee, after initial problems, it served from 1956 until 1964.�? More on Wikipedia.

    December 30, 2008

  • A very dark energy

    November 12, 2018