demoniac

comparative more demoniac · superlative most demoniac · alternative daemoniac · alternative dæmoniac

1. Possessed or controlled by a demon.
2. Of or pertaining to demons; demonic.

   How dark may be the hiding of God's face, Or what demoniac forms may seize the helm Of reason...

   1827, Lydia Huntley Sigourney, Poems, 1827: The Sweetness of Life, page 24

   2 more examples

   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.

   1928 February, H[oward] P[hillips] Lovecraft, “The Call of Cthulhu”, in Farnsworth Wright, editor, Weird Tales: A Magazine of the Bizarre and Unusual, volume XI, number 2, Indianapolis, Ind.: Popular Fiction Publishing Company, →OCLC

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

   1955, William Golding, The Inheritors, Faber & Faber, published 2005, page 216

   Synonyms: demoniacal, devilish, diabolic, cacodaemoniacal, daemonical, demoniacal, demonic, demonical

plural demoniacs · alternative daemoniac · alternative dæmoniac

1. Someone who is possessed by a demon.

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

   1971, Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic, Folio Society, published 2012, page 53