demon
from
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48
Demon \De"mon\, n. [F. d['e]mon, L. daemon a spirit, an evil
spirit, fr. Gr. dai`mwn a divinity; of uncertain origin.]
1. (Gr. Antiq.) A spirit, or immaterial being, holding a
middle place between men and deities in pagan mythology.
[1913 Webster]
The demon kind is of an intermediate nature between
the divine and the human. --Sydenham.
[1913 Webster]
2. One's genius; a tutelary spirit or internal voice; as, the
demon of Socrates. [Often written {d[ae]mon}.]
[1913 Webster]
3. An evil spirit; a devil.
[1913 Webster]
That same demon that hath gulled thee thus. --Shak.
[1913 Webster]
from
Jargon File (4.4.4, 14 Aug 2003)
demon
n.
1. Often used equivalently to {daemon} -- especially in the {Unix}
world, where the latter spelling and pronunciation is considered
mildly archaic.
2. [MIT; now probably obsolete] A portion of a program that is not
invoked explicitly, but that lies dormant waiting for some
condition(s) to occur. See {daemon}. The distinction is that demons
are usually processes within a program, while daemons are usually
programs running on an operating system.
Demons in sense 2 are particularly common in AI programs. For example,
a knowledge-manipulation program might implement inference rules as
demons. Whenever a new piece of knowledge was added, various demons
would activate (which demons depends on the particular piece of data)
and would create additional pieces of knowledge by applying their
respective inference rules to the original piece. These new pieces
could in turn activate more demons as the inferences filtered down
through chains of logic. Meanwhile, the main program could continue
with whatever its primary task was.
from
The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (8 July 2008)
demon
1. <operating system> (Often used equivalently to {daemon},
especially in the {Unix} world, where the latter spelling and
pronunciation is considered mildly archaic). A program or
part of a program which is not invoked explicitly, but that
lies dormant waiting for some condition(s) to occur.
At {MIT} they use "demon" for part of a program and "daemon"
for an {operating system} process.
Demons (parts of programs) are particularly common in {AI}
programs. For example, a {knowledge}-manipulation program
might implement {inference rules} as demons. Whenever a new
piece of knowledge was added, various demons would activate
(which demons depends on the particular piece of data) and
would create additional pieces of knowledge by applying their
respective inference rules to the original piece. These new
pieces could in turn activate more demons as the inferences
filtered down through chains of logic. Meanwhile, the main
program could continue with whatever its primary task was.
This is similar to the {triggers} used in {relational
databases}.
The use of this term may derive from "Maxwell's Demons" -
minute beings which can reverse the normal flow of heat from a
hot body to a cold body by only allowing fast moving molecules
to go from the cold body to the hot one and slow molecules
from hot to cold. The solution to this apparent thermodynamic
paradox is that the demons would require an external supply of
energy to do their work and it is only in the absence of such
a supply that heat must necessarily flow from hot to cold.
Walt Bunch believes the term comes from the demons in Oliver
Selfridge's paper "Pandemonium", MIT 1958, which was named
after the capital of Hell in Milton's "Paradise Lost".
Selfridge likened neural cells firing in response to input
patterns to the chaos of millions of demons shrieking in
Pandemonium.
2. <company> {Demon Internet} Ltd.
3. A {program generator} for {differential equation} problems.
[N.W. Bennett, Australian AEC Research Establishment,
AAEC/E142, Aug 1965].
[{Jargon File}]
(1998-09-04)
from
Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0
123 Moby Thesaurus words for "demon":
Baba Yaga, Lilith, Mafioso, Satan, Young Turk, addict, afreet,
ape-man, atua, barghest, beast, beldam, berserk, berserker, bomber,
brute, bug, cacodemon, collector, daemon, daeva, damned spirits,
demonkind, demons, denizens of hell, devil, devil incarnate,
dragon, dybbuk, eager beaver, energumen, enthusiast, evil genius,
evil spirit, evil spirits, faddist, fanatic, fiend,
fiend from hell, fire-eater, firebrand, freak, fury, genie, genius,
ghoul, goon, gorilla, great one for, gunsel, gyre, hardnose, harpy,
hell-raiser, hellcat, hellhound, hellion, hellish host, hellkite,
hobbyist, holy terror, hood, hoodlum, host of hell, hothead,
hotspur, hound, incendiary, incubus, infatuate,
inhabitants of Pandemonium, intelligence, jinni, jinniyeh, killer,
lamia, lost souls, mad dog, madcap, monster, mugger, nut, ogre,
ogress, powers of darkness, pursuer, rakshasa, rapist,
revolutionary, rhapsodist, satan, savage, she-wolf, shedu,
souls in hell, specter, spirit, spitfire, succubus, sucker for,
supernatural being, termagant, terror, terrorist, the damned,
the lost, the undead, tiger, tigress, tough, tough guy,
ugly customer, vampire, violent, virago, visionary, vixen,
werewolf, wild beast, witch, wolf, yogini, zealot
from
Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0
20 Moby Thesaurus words for "Demon":
His Satanic Majesty, Lucifer, Satan, Satanas, the Adversary,
the Arch-fiend, the Common Enemy, the Demon, the Devil,
the Devil Incarnate, the Evil One, the Evil Spirit, the Fiend,
the Foul Fiend, the Old Enemy, the Old Serpent, the Tempter,
the Wicked One, the archenemy, the serpent
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