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DEMON
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
An evil supernatural being
Synonyms:
daemon; daimon; demon; devil; fiend
Classified under:
Hypernyms ("demon" is a kind of...):
evil spirit (a spirit tending to cause harm)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "demon"):
incubus (a male demon believed to lie on sleeping persons and to have sexual intercourse with sleeping women)
succuba; succubus (a female demon believed to have sexual intercourse with sleeping men)
dibbuk; dybbuk ((Jewish folklore) a demon that enters the body of a living person and controls that body's behavior)
Derivation:
demoniac (of, pertaining to, or like a demon or possession by a demon)
demonize (make into a demon)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Someone extremely diligent or skillful
Example:
she's a demon at math
Classified under:
Nouns denoting people
Hypernyms ("demon" is a kind of...):
actor; doer; worker (a person who acts and gets things done)
Sense 3
Meaning:
A cruel wicked and inhuman person
Synonyms:
demon; devil; fiend; monster; ogre
Classified under:
Nouns denoting people
Hypernyms ("demon" is a kind of...):
disagreeable person; unpleasant person (a person who is not pleasant or agreeable)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "demon"):
demoniac (someone who acts as if possessed by a demon)
Derivation:
demonic (extremely evil or cruel; expressive of cruelty or befitting hell)
demonize (make into a demon)
Context examples:
He seemed under no apprehension, though he must have known that his life, among these treacherous demons, depended on a hair; and he rattled on to his patients as if he were paying an ordinary professional visit in a quiet English family.
(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)
The old physicians took account of things which their followers do not accept, and the Professor is searching for witch and demon cures which may be useful to us later.
(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)
It so outraged him and upset him that for hours he would behave like a demon.
(White Fang, by Jack London)
Concealing the mad-woman's neighbourhood from you, however, was something like covering a child with a cloak and laying it down near a upas-tree: that demon's vicinage is poisoned, and always was.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
And I noticed the boyish face of Harrison,—a good face once, but now a demon’s,—convulsed with passion as he told the new-comers of the hell-ship they were in and shrieked curses upon the head of Wolf Larsen.
(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)
Indomitable, never resting, fighting for seconds and minutes all week, circumventing delays and crushing down obstacles, a fount of resistless energy, a high-driven human motor, a demon for work, now that he had accomplished the week's task he was in a state of collapse.
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
Never did I imagine such wrath and fury, even to the demons of the pit.
(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)
Here the squaws came to his aid, and White Fang, transformed into a raging demon, was finally driven off only by a fusillade of stones.
(White Fang, by Jack London)
What creature was it, that, masked in an ordinary woman's face and shape, uttered the voice, now of a mocking demon, and anon of a carrion-seeking bird of prey?
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
“I wished merely to prepare you for the worst, if the worst is to come. This man, this captain, is a brute, a demon, and one can never tell what will be his next fantastic act.”
(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)
