" devil "

[Noun]  | "dev*il" | \ ˈde-vᵊl \

1: the personal supreme spirit of evil often represented in Christian belief as the tempter of humankind, the leader of all apostate angels, and the ruler of hell —usually used with the—often used as an interjection, an intensive, or a generalized term of abuse

2: an evil spirit : demon

3: an extremely wicked person : fiend

Origin: before 12th century ;

 Middle English devel, del, dule, going back to Old English dēofol, dīoful, going back to West Germanic *diuvul- (whence also Old Frisian diūvel, diōvel, Old Saxon diuƀal, Middle Dutch duvel, Old High German tiuval, tiufal), probably borrowed from an early Romance outcome of Late Latin diabolus "the Devil," borrowed from Greek diábolos (New Testament, Septuagint, as a rendering of Hebrew śāṭān {see: |satan|Satan}), earlier, "accuser, backbiter, slanderer," agentive derivative of diabállein "to take across, put through, set at variance, attack (a person's character), accuse, slander," from dia- {see: |dia-|dia-} + bállō, bállein "to reach by throwing, let fly, strike, put, place," going back to earlier *gwəl-n-ō or *gwəl-i̯-ō, perhaps going back to an Indo-European base *gwelh1-;

  * Note : The standard English pronunciation of devil with the outcome of a short vowel presumably reflects shortening of the Old English dipththong -ēo-/-īo- in syncopated forms, as the nominative plural dēoflas. The early Modern English form divel (as in Shakespeare), preserved in regional and dialectal speech in both Britain and the U.S., shows Middle English shortening of original ̣ to i. Forms such as Middle English dele and early Scots dele show loss of before a syllable ending in a liquid. — Greek bállein and its many prefixed forms are rich in nominal derivatives, usually with o-grade (as in diábolos, perhaps secondarily agentive, after the adjective diábolos "slanderous, backbiting") or with zero grade blē- (going back to *gwl̥h1-C-). That the original consonant was a labiovelar is assured by the Arcadian form esdellō, with e-grade, corresponding to Greek ekballō "expel, let fall." Despite its thoroughly Indo-European formal properties, bállein has no certain cognates outside Greek.;

[Noun]  | "devil ray" 

1: any of various very large rays (genera Manta and Mobula of the family Mobulidae) widely distributed in warm seas that have large, triangular, winglike pectoral fins and a pair of hornlike lobes near the mouth which are used to guide plankton and other small aquatic organisms into the mouth, that typically lack a stinger on the tail, and that reproduce viviparously producing one or two offspring at birth —called also devilfish

Origin: 1832 ;

[Noun]  | "devil's advocate" 

1: a Roman Catholic official whose duty is to examine critically the evidence on which a demand for beatification or canonization rests

2: a person who champions the less accepted cause for the sake of argument

Origin: 1771 ;

 Translation of New Latin advocatus diaboli;

[Noun]  | "devil's claw" 

1: any of several herbs (genus Proboscidea synonym Martynia of the family Martyniaceae) of the southwestern U.S. and Mexico that have edible pods yielding a black sewing material used in basket making

Origin: 1876 ;

[Noun]  | "devil's club" 

1: a spiny western North American shrub (Oplopanax horridus) of the ginseng family having large lobed leaves and stems covered with dense sharp prickles

Origin: circa 1883 ;

[Noun]  | "devil's darning needle" 

1: dragonfly

2: damselfly

Origin: 1809 ;

[Noun]  | "devil's food cake" 

1: a rich chocolate cake

Origin: 1892 ;

[Noun]  | "devil's ivy" 

1: pothos

Origin: 1910 ;

[Verb]  | "devil" 

1: to season highly

2: tease, annoy

Origin: 1787 ;

 Derivative of {see: |devil:1|devil:1};

[Adjective]  | "dev*il-may-care" | \ ˌde-vᵊl-(ˌ)mā-ˈker \

1: easygoing, carefree

Origin: 1837 ;

[Verb]  | "devil" 

[Noun]  | "devil" 

[Noun]  | "sea devil" 

[Adjective]  | "devil-may-care" 

[Interjection]  | "the devil"