demoniac

• daemoniac
• dæmoniac

From Old French démoniaque, from Late Latin daemoniacus.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /dɪˈməʊnɪak/, /diməˈnaɪæk/

demoniac (comparative more demoniac, superlative most demoniac)

1. possessed or controlled by a demon.
2. Of or pertaining to demons; demonic.
   • 1928, H. P. Lovecraft, "The Call of Cthulhu", Weird Tales, Vol. 11, No. 2, pages 159–178, 287:

     Animal fury and orgiastic licence here whipped themselves to demoniac heights by howls and squawking ecstasies that tore and reverberated through those nighted woods like pestilential tempests from the gulfs of hell.

   • 1955, William Golding, The Inheritors, Faber & Faber 2005, p. 216:

     There was movement everywhere, screaming, demoniac activity; the old man was coming across the tumbling logs.

demoniac (plural demoniacs)

1. Someone who is possessed by a demon.
   • 1971, Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic, Folio Society 2012, p. 53:

     The exorcism was dropped from the second Edwardian Prayer Book, because of its implication that unbaptised infants were demoniacs […].

• demoniac in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.

• comedian, daemonic, dæmonic, midocean