daemon

See also: Dämon and dæmon

English

Etymology 1

A borrowing of Latin daemōn (“tutelary deity”), from Ancient Greek δαίμων (daímōn, “dispenser, tutelary deity”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation, General American) IPA^(key): /ˈdiː.mən/
• Rhymes: -iːmən
• Hyphenation: dae‧mon

Noun

daemon (plural daemons or daemones)

1. (mythology) A minor deity or divinity.
   • 2018, Carolyn Graves-Brown, Daemons and Spirits in Ancient Egypt, University of Wales Press, page 46,

     On some apotropaic wands the hippopotamus daemon bites or devours a person.⁸⁸ On a well-known New Kingdom papyrus, Taweret, who is named, is listed amongst evil daemons.

2. A muse, a personified source of inspiration, especially one that also causes anguish.
   • 2012, Eden Paul, Cedar Paul (translators), Stefan Zweig, The Struggle with the Daemon: Hölderlin, Kleist and Nietzsche, Pushkin Press, unnumbered page,

     That is why those of exceptionally "daemonic temperament", those who cannot early and thoroughly subdue the daemon within them, are racked by disquietude. Ever and again the daemon snatches the helm from their control and steers them (helpless as straws in the blast) into the heart of the storm, perchance to shatter them on the rocks of destiny.

   • 2015, Harold Bloom, The Daemon Knows, Penguin Random House (Random House), eBook edition, unnumbered page,

     Coleridge, deep in daemons, looked to them for his poetic power: They gave him Kubla Khan, Christabel, and The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. He welcomed his daemon or genius and yet feared it.

3. An idea depicted as an entity.
4. (uncommon) Alternative form of demon.

Derived terms

• daemonology

Related terms

• agathodaemon
• cacodaemon/cacodemon; cacodaemonic/cacodemonic; cacodaemoniacal
• daemonic
• daimon
• eudaemon

See also

• genius
• muse
• tutelary deity

Etymology 2

A reference to Maxwell's demon. The putative derivation from "disk and execution monitor" is generally considered a backronym.

Alternative forms

• dæmon, daimon, demon

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈdiːmən/, /ˈdeɪmən/
• Rhymes: -iːmən, -eɪmən
• Hyphenation: dae‧mon

Noun

daemon (plural daemons)

1. (computing, Unix) A process (a running program) that does not have a controlling terminal.

Usage notes

• (Unix): Often a daemon will run on a server.

Translations

computing: process with no controlling terminal

• Czech: démon (cs) m
• Finnish: taustaprosessi, palveluprosessi, daemoni
• French: démon (fr) m (ISO/IEC 2382-28:1995)
• German: Hintergrundprogramm n
• Greek: δαίμων (el) m (daímon), δαίμονας (el) m (daímonas)
• Irish: daeman m
• Japanese: デーモン (ja) (dēmon)
• Russian: де́мон (ru) m (démon)
• Spanish: demonio (es) m
• Swedish: demon (sv) c
• Turkish: artalan süreci (tr)
• Ukrainian: де́мон m (démon)

See also

• background process

Anagrams

• Modane, Modena, moaned, modena, nomade

Japanese

Romanization

daemon

1. Rōmaji transcription of ダエモン

Latin

Alternative forms

• demon (Medieval Latin)

Etymology

From Ancient Greek δαίμων (daímōn, “dispenser, god, protective spirit”).

Pronunciation

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): /ˈdae̯.moːn/, [ˈd̪äe̯moːn]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈde.mon/, [ˈd̪ɛːmon]

Noun

daemōn m (genitive daemonis); third declension

1. a genius loci, a lar, the protective spirit or godling of a place or household
2. (astrology) the 11th of the 12 signs of the zodiac
3. (Ecclesiastical Latin) a demon
   • 1633, Johannes de Laet, Novus orbis seu descriptionis Indiæ occidentalis, Libri XVIII, page 642:

     […] perſuadent enim ſe crebro cum dæmone ſermones ſerere, quem Wattipam nominant, & res geſtas in longinquis regionibus ab ipſo edoceri, nec non futuras præmoneri: agnoſcunt autem hunc ſpiritum malum eſſe; neque injuria, nam haud raro miſerum in modum ab ipſo flagellantur.

     For they persuade themselves that they often hold conversations with a demon whom they call Wattipa, and that they are informed by him of things done in distant regions, and indeed foreshown things to be: but they acknowledge that this spirit is evil; and not without reason, for not infrequently they are scourged by him in a miserable manner.

Declension

Third-declension noun.

Case	Singular	Plural
Nominative	daemōn	daemonēs
Genitive	daemonis	daemonum
Dative	daemonī	daemonibus
Accusative	daemonem daemona	daemonēs daemonas
Ablative	daemone	daemonibus
Vocative	daemōn	daemonēs

Derived terms

• daemonicus

Related terms

• daemonium
• cacodemon
• calodemon

Descendants

• → Albanian: djemën
• Aromanian: demun
• → Catalan: dèmon (learned)
• → English: daemon, demon
• → French: démon
• Galician: demo
• → German: Dämon
• → Old Irish: demon, demun
  • Irish: deamhan
  • Scottish Gaelic: deamhan
• Italian: demone
• Portuguese: demo, demónio/demônio
• Translingual: Felis daemon

References

• “daemon”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• daemon in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
• daemon in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• “daemon”, in The Perseus Project (1999) Perseus Encyclopedia‎^[1]
• “daemon”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898), Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers