| 释义 |
demoniac, a. and n.|dɪˈməʊnɪæk|
Forms: 4–5 demoniak (-yak), 5–7 -acke, 5–8 -ack, 6–7 -ake, 7 -aque, (dæ-), 7– demoniac.
[ad. late L. dæmoniac-us (in Tertullian c 200), a. Gr. type *δαιµονιακ-ός, f. δαιµόνιον: see demon1.]
A. adj.
1. Possessed by a demon or evil spirit.
c1386Chaucer Sompn. T. 532, I hold him certeinly demoniak. 1483Caxton G. de la Tour C vij, The lady wente oute of her wytte and was al demonyak a long tyme. 1542Boorde Dyetary xxxvii. (1870) 298 Lunatycke, or frantycke, or demonyacke. a1612Donne βιαθανατος (1644) 217 That the Kings of Spaine should dispossess Dæmoniaque persons. 1647H. More Song of Soul i. ii. xxix, Magick can onely quell natures Dæmoniake. c1811Fuseli Lect. Art v. (1848) 471 The demoniac boy among the series of frescoes at Grotta Ferrata. 1813Examiner 15 Mar. 165/1 This..idea..operated upon the demoniac spirit of the wretch.
b. Pertaining to demoniacal possession.
1674Milton P.L. (ed. 2) xi. 485 Demoniac phrenzy, moping melancholy, And moon-struck madness. a1814Prophetess ii. vii, As with demoniac energy possess'd!
2. Of or pertaining to demons.
1642Milton Apol. Smect. (1851) 275 This is the Demoniack legion indeed. 1671― P.R. iv. 628 He..Shall chase thee..From thy demoniack holds, possession foul. 1669Gale Crt. Gentiles i. ii. vi. 71 The mourning of the Demoniac Spirits, for the death of their great God Pan. 1882Farrar Early Chr. II. 266, I agree with those who see in this vision a purely demoniac host.
3. Characteristic of or befitting a demon; devilish.
1820Hazlitt Lect. Dram. Lit. 179 Wrought up to a pitch of demoniac scorn and phrensy. 1854Mrs. Gaskell North & S. xxii, It was as the dæmoniac desire of some terrible wild beast for the food that is withheld from his ravening. 1862Tyndall Mountaineer. i. 3 The spirit of life..is rendered demoniac or angelic.
4. Of the nature of a dæmon or in-dwelling spirit; = demonic 2.
1844Masson Ess., Three Devils (1856) 171 Goethe and Niebuhr generalised in the phrase ‘the demoniac [ed. 1874 p. 288 demonic] element’ that mystic something which they seemed to detect in all men of unusual potency among their fellows. Ibid., The demoniac element in a man..may in one case be the demoniac of the etherial and celestial, in another the demoniac of the Tartarean and infernal. 1856W. E. Forster in T. W. Reid Life (1888) I. viii. 306 Denying..that demoniac element in man which is the very fire of God.
B. n.
1. One possessed by a demon or evil spirit.
c1386Chaucer Sompn. T. 584 He nas no fool, ne no demoniak. 1483Caxton Cato E viij b, And helyth the demonyackes or madde folk. 1546Langley Pol. Verg. De Invent. i. xviii. 33 a, To banish the Spirit out of y⊇ Demoniake. 1665Boyle Occas. Refl. iv. x. (1845) 226 Possessed by it as Dœmoniacks are possessed by the Divel. 1717Berkeley in Fraser Life (1871) 580 The demoniacs of S. Andrea della Valle. 1845Darwin Voy. Nat. x. (1879) 221 They looked like so many demoniacs who had been fighting.
†2. Eccl. Hist. (See quot.) Obs.
1727–51Chambers Cycl., Dæmoniacs, are also a party or branch of the Anabaptists, whose distinguishing tenet it is, that the devils shall be saved at the end of the world. 1847in Craig, and later Dicts. |