Old English, via late Latin and Greek from Hebrew śāṭān, literally 'adversary', from śāṭan 'plot against'.

• This has been used as a name for the Devil since Anglo-Saxon times, and goes back to Hebrew sātān, which literally meant ‘adversary’. William Blake's great poem ‘Jerusalem’, which is part of Milton (1804–1808) and later became a popular hymn, is the source of the phrase dark satanic mills. ‘Jerusalem’ also gave us ‘England's green and pleasant land’.