Faith & RitualGreek → English
Devil
/ˈdɛvəl/noun
The chief evil spirit in Christian belief, or any malignant one.
The Greek roots
διά
diá
across, through
βάλλειν
bállein
to throw
Literally: “one who throws accusations across”
The story of the word
διάβολος is a courtroom word before it is a theological one: the slanderer, the one who throws charges at you. The Jewish translators of the Septuagint used it to render Hebrew satan, the adversary or prosecutor, and Christian Greek then hardened a job description into a proper name. Latin diabolus reached Old English as deofol, and the same throwing verb runs through problem, symbol and hyperbole.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → Old English
- First recorded
- Old English
Same family
diabolicalproblemsymbolhyperbole
In a sentence
He argued the other side for an hour, purely as devil's advocate.