demon

• n. 惡魔；魔鬼；精力充沛的人；邪惡的事物
• n. (Demon)人名；(塞)德蒙

來自PIE*da, 分開，分配，命運的分配者。原指神靈，後詞義貶義化，指魔鬼。

demon

demon: [14] English acquired this word from Latin in two forms, classical Latin daemōn and medieval Latin dēmōn, which were once used fairly interchangeably for ‘evil spirit’ but have now split apart. Demon retains the sense ‘evil spirit’, but this was in fact a relatively late semantic development. Greek daímōn (source of Latin daemōn) meant ‘divine power, fate, god’ (it is probably related to Greek daíomai ‘distribute, allot’, which comes from an Indo- European base whose descendants include English tide and time).

It was used in Greek myths as a term for a minor deity, and it was also applied to a ‘guiding spirit’ (senses now usually denoted by daemon in English). It seems to be from this latter usage that the sense ‘evil spirit’ (found in the Greek Septuagint and New Testament and in the Latin Vulgate) arose.
=> pandemonium, time, tide

demon (n.)

c. 1200, from Latin daemon "spirit," from Greek daimon "deity, divine power; lesser god; guiding spirit, tutelary deity" (sometimes including souls of the dead); "one's genius, lot, or fortune;" from PIE *dai-mon- "divider, provider" (of fortunes or destinies), from root *da- "to divide" (see tide (n.)).

Used (with daimonion) in Christian Greek translations and Vulgate for "god of the heathen" and "unclean spirit." Jewish authors earlier had employed the Greek word in this sense, using it to render shedim "lords, idols" in the Septuagint, and Matt. viii:31 has daimones, translated as deofol in Old English, feend or deuil in Middle English. Another Old English word for this was hellcniht, literally "hell-knight."

The original mythological sense is sometimes written daemon for purposes of distinction. The Demon of Socrates was a daimonion, a "divine principle or inward oracle." His accusers, and later the Church Fathers, however, represented this otherwise. The Demon Star (1895) is Algol.

1. The festival commemorates the slaying of the demon buffalo.

那個節日是為了紀念殺死魔牛。

來自柯林斯例句

2. He played like a demon.

他球藝驚人。

來自柯林斯例句

3. She was a dictator and a demon.

她是一個獨裁者，一個女魔頭。

來自柯林斯例句

4. He is a demon organizer.

他組織能力極強。

來自柯林斯例句

5. She worked like a demon all through rehearsals.

她每次排演時始終精力過人.

來自《簡明英漢詞典》