Date: Tue, 15 Apr 2003 17:16:07 -0500 From: Walter <walterk1@earthlink.net> To: "Gary W. Swearingen" <swear@attbi.com> Cc: Questions <freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.org> Subject: Re: FreeBSD logo... Message-ID: <3E9C84A7.6060504@earthlink.net> References: <BAY1-DAV71D585c9HZT00005d43@hotmail.com> <3E9C2965.5080504@potentialtech.com> <37of37bi5i.f37@localhost.localdomain>
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Gary W. Swearingen wrote:
>
> My large American Heritage dictionary says that "daemon" means "demon".
> (Actually, it says it's a variant of "demon", and that's all it says).
>
> For "demon", the fourth sense is "An attendant spirit; a genius." and
> the fifth sense is "One who is extremely zealous, skillful, or engrossed
> in a given activity."
>
> But it also says it's derived from "Late Latin 'Daemon', evil spirit."
> and the first sense is "A devil or evil being;...".
Fwiw, a Biblical lexicon has this:
From "The Complete Word Study Dictionary - New Testament,"
page 395 (editted):
1142 daimon: gen. daimonos, masc., fem. noun. Demon ... The
Greeks gave the word daimon the same meaning as "god." What
they meant, however, by the word is still a conjecture. They
may have related a demon with daemon as knowing, experienced
in a thing, or they may have derived the word from daiomai,
to assign or award one's lot in life. ...
So, "daemon" in the Greek meant "knowing, experienced in a thing,"
a description I'm sure the *BSD crowd would approve for their O/S.
(Of course, one could relate it also to that bad tree in the garden,
but let's not get into that. <g>)
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