Topic summary
Evil spirit
Extracted from the Wikipedia article Demon.
Etymology
The English use of demon as synonym for devils goes back at least as far as about 825. The German word (Dämon), however, is different from devil (Teufel) and demons as evil spirits, and akin to the original meaning of daimōn. The Western Modern era conception of demons, as in the Ars Goetia, derives seamlessly from the ambient popular culture of Late Antiquity.