DEMON

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does demon mean? 

• DEMON (noun)
  The noun DEMON has 3 senses:

1. an evil supernatural being

2. a cruel wicked and inhuman person

3. someone extremely diligent or skillful

  Familiarity information: DEMON used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• DEMON (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

An evil supernatural being

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

daemon; daimon; demon; devil; fiend

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:

A cruel wicked and inhuman person

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

demon; devil; fiend; monster; ogre

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)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Someone extremely diligent or skillful

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Context example:

she's a demon at math

Hypernyms ("demon" is a kind of...):

actor; doer; worker (a person who acts and gets things done)

 Context examples 

The heart and hand of the good angel Spenlow would have been always open, but for the restraining demon Jorkins.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

The next moment Weedon Scott had torn loose from the embrace and closed with White Fang, who had become a snarling, raging demon.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

Joe was snapping like a demon.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

Presently he said to Van Helsing:—Is this really Lucy's body, or only a demon in her shape?

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

Joe was a dozen of demons for work.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

To tell me that I had already a wife is empty mockery: you know now that I had but a hideous demon.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Jo glanced over her shoulder, and the little demon she was harboring said in her ear...

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

He was tractable enough, though his son was a perfect demon, ready to blow out his own or anybody else’s brains if he could have got to his revolver.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Humphrey Van Weyden, “the cold-blooded fish,” the “emotionless monster,” the “analytical demon,” of Charley Furuseth’s christening, in love!

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

‘Well, then, you know now. And if you ever put your foot over that threshold again’—here in an instant the smile hardened into a grin of rage, and he glared down at me with the face of a demon—‘I’ll throw you to the mastiff.’

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)