- tutelary
- 1611, from L. tutelarius "a guardian," from tutela "protection, watching" (see tutor).
- lares
- "Roman tutelary gods, household deities," 1586, from L., pl. of lar.
- demon
- late 14c., from L. dæmon "spirit," from Gk. daimon (gen. daimonos) "lesser god, guiding spirit, tutelary deity," (sometimes including souls of the dead), used (with daimonion) in Christian Gk. translations and Vulgate for "god of the heathen" and "unclean spirit." Jewish authors earlier had employed the Gk. word in this sense, using it to render shedim "lords, idols" in the Septuagint, and Matt. viii.31 has daimones, translated as deofol in O.E., feend or deuil in M.E. The original mythological sense is sometimes written dæmon for purposes of distinction. The Demon of Socrates (late 14c.) was a daimonion, a "divine principle or inward oracle." His accusers, and later the Church Fathers, however, represented this otherwise. Fem. form demoness first attested 1630s. The Demon Star (1895) is Algol.
- genie
- 1655, "tutelary spirit," from Fr. genie, from L. genius (see genius); used in Fr. translation of "Arabian Nights" to render Arabic jinni, pl. of jinn "spirit," which it accidentally resembled, and attested in Eng. with this sense from 1748.
- genus
- (pl. genera), 1551 as a term of logic (biological sense dates from 1608), from L. genus (gen. generis) "race, stock, kind," cognate with Gk. genos "race, kind," and gonos "birth, offspring, stock," from PIE base *gen-/*gon-/*gn- "produce, beget, be born" (cf. Skt. janati "begets, bears," janah "race," jatah "born;" Avestan zizanenti "they bear;" Gk. gignesthai "to become, happen;" L. gignere "to beget," gnasci "to be born," genius "procreative divinity, inborn tutelary spirit, innate quality," ingenium "inborn character," germen "shoot, bud, embryo, germ;" Lith. gentis "kinsmen;" Goth. kuni "race;" O.E. cennan "beget, create;" O.H.G. kind "child;" O.Ir. ro-genar "I was born;" Welsh geni "to be born").
- hermeneutic
- "interpretive," 1678, from Gk. hermeneutikos "interpreting," from hermeneutes "interpreter," from hermeneuein "to interpret," considered ultimately a derivative of Hermes, as the tutelary divinity of speech, writing, and eloquence.
- daimon
- transliteration of Gk. daimon "lesser god, guiding spirit, tutelary deity," 1852; see demon. Employed to avoid the post-classical associations of that word.