daemon1
/ˈdiːmən
/(also daimon)
noun
1(In ancient Greek belief) a divinity or supernatural being of a nature between gods and humans.Iamblichus also stressed that theurgists usually worked with lesser divinities - heroes, daimons and angels - and only the greatest of all, in exceptional circumstances, would trouble actual deities....
- I am an ancient daemon, and although I give the impression of being a model of youth and femininity, I have lived so many centuries I have begun to lose track.
- Exiled daemons are reincarnated into all sorts of living forms, finally coming to be as prophets, poets, physicians, and leaders among men.
1.1An inner or attendant spirit or inspiring force: Socrates claimed to have lived his life according to the dictates of his daimon...
- That's how the spirit is controlled - daemons are fiercely independent beings, if they can get away - they will.
- Casey's brain kicked into gear, her inner daemons flagging something from an old puzzle book.
- They ‘send’ - via Mercury - those inner daemons that are bent on shaking up and shattering limiting preconceptions of who we are and what our role in life is.
Synonyms
inspiring force, genius, numen, demon;
tutelary spirit, familiar spirit, attendant spirit;
Latin genius loci
2 archaic spelling of demon1.is the entire town possessed by a malevolent daemon, forcing people to worship it by carving its image into fruit and vegetables, and hanging its likeness in their windows?...
- The ghosts are back; the manic daemons who make me think of spirits and kill the science.
- Many returned to the old idea that the child was an evil spirit, or daemon sent to punish the royal family.
Derivatives
daemonic
/ adjective ...- I admire those proud, cold beings who adventure upon the paths of great and daemonic beauty and despise ‘mankind’; but I do not envy them.
- Thus, a purely aesthetic veneration for the old and defeated culture coexists with an intimation of its still unquiet daemonic power.
- Moreover, in Jacobean drama calculation and cynicism are typically coded as daemonic and intrigue is in league with Evil.
Origin
Mid 16th century: common spelling of demon1 until the 19th century.
Rhymes
daemon2
/ˈdiːmən/(also demon)
noun Computing
A background process that handles requests for services such as print spooling and file transfers, and is dormant when not required.Before you can start using the administration daemon over the network, you have to create a keytab file containing the key for one of the kadmin principals created when we initialized our realm....
- The slave component is run as a daemon (Unix) or system service (Win 32).
- I added this new line with an appropriate IP address for my subnet, and restarted the named daemon.
Origin
1980s: perhaps from d(isk) a(nd) e(xecution) mon(itor) or from de(vice) mon(itor), or a transferred use of demon1.