demos

Pluraldemoses, demoi

1. 1
   nouncolloquial

   Plural of demo.

   The band recorded three rough demos in a friend's garage.

   The studio released free demos of both games so players could try them first.

   Note

   A regular -s plural, as casual as the singular, with uses running from rough song recordings and trial software to protest marches and renovation work; the setting does the sorting. Despite the spelling, it has nothing to do with the Greek word for the people: the two words simply happen to look alike, and only this one takes a plain -s.

2. 2
   verbcolloquial

   Third-person singular simple present of demo.

   The contractor demos the old kitchen before the new cabinets arrive.

   Each week the sales rep demos the software for a different client.

   Note

   Used after a singular subject in the present tense: she demos the app, the contractor demos the kitchen. Like the noun, the verb is casual. In formal writing demonstrates, records or tears down usually fits better, and naming the action outright also removes any doubt about which kind of demo is meant.

3. 3
   SayDEE-mosUS/ˈdiˌmɑs/UK/ˈdiːmɒs/

   noun

   The ordinary citizens of an ancient Greek city-state, and by extension the common people of any state or district, especially a democratic one.

   Critics of democracy feared that the demos would be swayed by clever speakers.

   Populist politicians like to claim that they alone speak for the demos.

   Similarpopulace, people, public, masses

   Note

   Political scientists use it for the citizen body in whose name a state is governed, often set against its rulers or elites. It takes either a singular or a plural verb: the demos was divided, the demos were restless. Tim Blanning's The Pursuit of Glory (2007) captures the old fear it carries: when the demos took charge, law and order collapsed, or so its critics concluded.

4. 4
   SayDEE-mosUS/ˈdiˌmɑs/UK/ˈdiːmɒs/

   nouncountable

   One of the local districts into which ancient Attica was divided; now also a Greek municipality, an administrative area covering a city or several villages.

   Every Athenian citizen was registered in the demos of his ancestors.

   After the reform, several mountain villages were merged into a single demos.

   Similardeme

   Note

   Greek dêmos meant the common people of a district, and it named the district as well as its citizens. English histories of Athens often prefer deme, the same Greek word in an English shape; demos keeps the Greek spelling and usually the Greek plural, demoi, though demoses also occurs. In present-day Greece it names a municipality, so the word has outlived the ancient map.

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