Howdy hey there, partner! Get on down and welcome to An Assemblage of Grandiose and Bombastic Grandiloquents! Now did that greeting seem a little odd? Perhaps even crazy? Good! That is precisely what I was going for, as I explain today’s word: pandemonium.

The most common usage of pandemonium is the definition stating ‘chaos; tumultuous or lawless violence’, or even ‘an outburst; loud, riotous uproar, especially that of a crowd.’ However, the archaic, and slightly more fantastical meaning is ‘a place where all demons live; hell’. The word was coined John Milton in ‘Paradise Lost,’ and comes from the Ancient Greek ‘pan’ meaning ‘all’ and the Late Latin ‘daemonium’ meaning ‘evil spirit’ or demon’. Thus, we have pandemonium, or ‘all of the evil spirits’. 

The word ‘demon’ itself comes from Middle English, borrowing from Medieval Latin ‘dēmōn’ meaning ‘familiar spirit’, which in turn is from the Ancient Greek ‘daímōn’ meaning ‘dispenser, god, protective spirit’. Interestingly, the word demon can be used to refer to both an evil supernatural spirit, or a neutral supernatural spirit. The word ‘spirit’ can also be used to describe the soul of a person, or a supernatural being, whether good or evil. ‘Spirit’ comes from the Latin ‘spīritus’ meaning ‘breath; spirit’, which in turn is from Proto-Indo-European ‘*(s)peys-’ meaning ‘to blow’. It can be compared to the English words ‘respire’ as in ‘respiratory system’ and ‘inspire’, ‘to fill with an urge to do something’, both of which originate from the Latin spīrō meaning ‘I breathe, blow, respire’. Thus, spirit relates back to being filled with air or life.

Isn’t language wonderful?

Written by Taylor Davidson, Read by Zane C Weber

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