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[Walter]

Gary W. Swearingen wrote:
> 
> My large American Heritage dictionary says that "daemon" means "demon".
> (Actually, it says it's a variant of "demon", and that's all it says).
> 
> For "demon", the fourth sense is "An attendant spirit; a genius." and
> the fifth sense is "One who is extremely zealous, skillful, or engrossed
> in a given activity."
> 
> But it also says it's derived from "Late Latin 'Daemon', evil spirit."
> and the first sense is "A devil or evil being;...".

Fwiw, a Biblical lexicon has this:

   From "The Complete Word Study Dictionary - New Testament,"
   page 395 (editted):

      1142 daimon: gen. daimonos, masc., fem. noun. Demon ... The
      Greeks gave the word daimon the same meaning as "god."  What
      they meant, however, by the word is still a conjecture.  They
      may have related a demon with daemon as knowing, experienced
      in a thing, or they may have derived the word from daiomai,
      to assign or award one's lot in life. ...

So, "daemon" in the Greek meant "knowing, experienced in a thing,"
a description I'm sure the *BSD crowd would approve for their O/S.
(Of course, one could relate it also to that bad tree in the garden,
but let's not get into that. <g>)