Word.ws English Dictionary

daemon

Syllables: dae·mon/ˈdiːmən/UK/ˈdiː.mən/

daemon noun: a minor deity or divinity. Also the archaic spelling of demon.

Noun (1)

daemon (plural daemons or daemones)

  1. A minor deity or divinity.
    • 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.2018, Carolyn Graves-Brown, Daemons and Spirits in Ancient Egypt, University of Wales Press, page 46
  2. A muse, a personified source of inspiration, especially one that also causes anguish.
    • 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...2012, Stefan Zweig, translated by Eden Paul and Cedar Paul, The Struggle with the Daemon: Hölderlin, Kleist and Nietzsche, Pushkin Press, 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.2015, Harold Bloom, The Daemon Knows, Penguin Random House (Random House), eBook edition, unnumbered page
  3. An idea depicted as an entity.

Noun (2)

daemon (plural daemons)

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

Also used as

daemon is also the archaic spelling of demon.

Forms of daemon

pluraldaemons
pluraldaemones
alternative formdæmon
alternative formdaimon
alternative formdemon

Plural of daemon: daemons or daemones

Origin of daemon

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

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

Words formed from daemon

Words that rhyme with daemon

Questions about daemon

What does daemon mean?
Daemon means a minor deity or divinity.
What part of speech is daemon?
Daemon is a noun.
How do you pronounce daemon?
Daemon is pronounced /ˈdiː.mən/ (UK).
What is the plural of daemon?
The plural of daemon is daemons.

Words near daemon in the dictionary

  1. daees
  2. daegeum
  3. Daegu
  4. Daeira
  5. Daejeon
  6. daemon
  7. daemones
  8. daemoniac
  9. daemonian
  10. daemonic
  11. daemonical

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: daemon (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “daemon.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/daemon. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.