English

Etymology

Noun

1. A tutelary spirit that guides a person; a genius.
   • 1891, Walter James Hoffman, The Mide'wiwin or "Grand Medicine Society" of the Ojibwa

     The object which first appears is adopted as the personal mystery, guardian spirit, or tutelary daimon of the entranced, and is never mentioned by him without first making a sacrifice.

   • 1900, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Over the Teacups

     All at once, my daimon—that other Me over whom I button my waistcoat when I button it over my own person—put it into my head to look up the story of Madame Saqui.

   • 1960, Charles I. Glicksberg, Norman Mailer: The Angry Young Novelist in America, in Wisconsin Studies in Contemporary Literature, vol. 1, no. 1

     He will release his pent-up rage and fear no evil, for his genius is with him, and his daimon bids him violate all the taboos of the literary marketplace.

Derived terms

• daimonic

References

• Oxford English Dictionary, second edition.

• Daimon is an alternative spelling for daemon, originally a feature of Greek mythology.
• In psychology, the Daimonic is the unrest which forces one into the unknown, leading to self-destruction or self-discovery.
• Daimon is a town in Toyama prefecture, Japan.

In fiction

• In Star Trek, Daimon is a rank in the Ferengi military/merchant fleet, approximately equivalent to a captain in Starfleet.
• Daimons are the "monsters of the week" in the third season of Sailor Moon.
• In the Dark Hunter series by Sherrilyn Kenyon, daimons are Apollites who have turned to sucking the souls from humans in order to stay alive. As such they are the adversaries of the Dark Hunters.
• In the novel Aristoi by Walter Jon Williams, daimones are a computerized sub-personalities developed through a combination of mental exercise and embedded computers.
• Daimon Hellstrom, a Marvel Comics character
• Daimon in the RPG Ars Magica are ancient beings of the magic realm.
• In W. B. Yeats' A Vision, the Daimon is the anti-self, each Daimon being drawn to the man it most differs from.
• Goro Daimon is a character in SNK's king of fighters series.