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Demonism
Definitions
- 1 Belief in, or worship of demons or devils. uncountable
"1699, Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury, Of Virtue, and the Belief of a Deity, in An Inquiry Concerning Virtue in Two Discourses, London: A. Bell et al., p. 10, […] if he believes more of the prevalency of an ill designing Principle than of a good one, he is then more a Daemonist than he is a Theist, and may be called a Daemonist from the side to which the balance most inclines. ¶ All these sorts both of Daemonism, Polytheism, Atheism, and Theism, may be mixed […]"
- 2 a belief in and reverence for devils (especially Satan) wordnet
- 3 The quality of being demonic. figuratively, often, uncountable
"1915, Henry James, letter to Evan Charteris dated 22 January, 1915 in Percy Lubbock (ed.), The Letters of Henry James, London: Macmillan, Volume 2, p. 453, What a pitiful horror indeed must that Ypres desolation and desecration be—a baseness of demonism."
- 4 An act or event attributed to demons or devils; an evil act. countable
"All that most maddens and torments; all that stirs up the lees of things; all truth with malice in it; all that cracks the sinews and cakes the brain; all the subtle demonisms of life and thought; all evil, to crazy Ahab, were visibly personified, and made practically assailable in Moby Dick."
Etymology
From demon + -ism.
See also for "demonism"
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