Demos

How to spell demos

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce demos

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does demos mean?

1. nounMore than one demo: sample recordings, trial versions, or short demonstrations of a product or skill.

Demos in a sentence

• The band recorded several rough demos in the garage before the album.

• The sales team prepared two product demos for the trade show.

Where does demos come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This little word carries two quite different histories. In its most common modern use it is simply the plural of 'demo', which is a twentieth-century clipping of 'demonstration', a word that traces back to the Latin demonstrare, meaning 'to point out' or 'to show clearly', built from de- 'fully' and monstrare 'to show'. The separate noun 'demos', meaning the ordinary people or the citizen body, comes directly from the ancient Greek dEmos, which literally meant 'the people' or a 'district' of citizens. That same Greek root is hiding inside everyday words such as 'democracy' (dEmos 'people' plus kratia 'rule') and 'demographic'. Because the clipped 'demo' is so familiar, most writers reach for 'demos' as the plural of recordings or product samples; the older Greek sense survives mainly in political and historical writing. The spelling is reassuringly regular in both branches, with no silent letters or doubled consonants to trip over.

How the word is built

• demo (a shortening of demonstration)
• -s (plural marker); the separate political noun comes whole from Greek dEmos meaning the common people