Demonisations

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The act of portraying someone or something as malevolent or evil
2. The process of depicting individuals or groups in a negative and harmful light
3. A method of vilifying or dehumanizing a person or idea to undermine its credibility

Etymology: "Demonisations" is simply the plural of "demonisation", a noun meaning the act of portraying someone or something as evil. The base word "demon" comes from Greek "daimōn", which originally referred to a divine power or spirit rather than a wicked being, and the sense of an evil spirit developed later in Christian usage. The suffix "-isation", the British spelling of "-ization", turns a noun or adjective into a noun denoting an action, process, or result, so "demonisation" is the act of treating someone as a demon. Because the word is formed from two familiar parts, its history is straightforward: the root's meaning shifted from benevolent or neutral spirit to malevolent being, and the suffix then made it possible to describe the rhetorical act of casting an opponent in that role. The plural form simply counts multiple instances of such portrayals.