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Webster 1913 Edition


Demoniac

De-mo′ni-ac

,
Noun.
1.
A human being possessed by a demon or evil spirit; one whose faculties are directly controlled by a demon.
The
demoniac
in the gospel was sometimes cast into the fire.
Bates.
2.
(Eccl. Hist.)
One of a sect of Anabaptists who maintain that the demons or devils will finally be saved.

Webster 1828 Edition


Demoniac

DEMONIAC

or DEMONIACAL or DEMONIAN,
Adj.
1.
Pertaining to demons or evil spirits.
2.
Influenced by demons; produced by demons or evil spirits.
Demoniac phrensy.

Definition 2024


demoniac

demoniac

English

Alternative forms

  • daemoniac
  • dæmoniac

Adjective

demoniac (comparative more demoniac, superlative most demoniac)

  1. possessed or controlled by a demon.
  2. Of or pertaining to demons; demonic.
    • 1928, H. P. Lovecraft, "The Call of Cthulhu", Weird Tales, Vol. 11, No. 2, pages 159–178, 287:
      Animal fury and orgiastic licence here whipped themselves to demoniac heights by howls and squawking ecstasies that tore and reverberated through those nighted woods like pestilential tempests from the gulfs of ****.
    • 1955, William Golding, The Inheritors, Faber & Faber 2005, p. 216:
      There was movement everywhere, screaming, demoniac activity; the old man was coming across the tumbling logs.

Noun

demoniac (plural demoniacs)

  1. Someone who is possessed by a demon.
    • 1971, Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic, Folio Society 2012, p. 53:
      The exorcism was dropped from the second Edwardian Prayer Book, because of its implication that unbaptised infants were demoniacs […].

References

  • demoniac in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913

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