DEvil & DEmon

I’ve been wondering why the words ‘devil’ and ‘demon’ both contain the same morpheme /de/ located in the front part of each word. Besides, these two words have quite a similarity on their meaning. But why? Why do they have to be spelled that way? Is it just mere coincidence? I wonder why.

So I came up with my own theory, but you might think this as nonsense. Never mind. Just spend some time to read this; it won’t kill your brain. What’s so interesting about the morpheme /de/? Semantically, /de/ is a prefix which shows rejection or the characteristic of oppositional to something. Funny enough, this might be the etymological reason why ‘demon’ and ‘devil’ comprises /de/. The devil or Satan was the creature who once lived in the Heaven along with the other angels. But, as a punishment of his disobedience to God, he was expelled (rejected) from the Heaven. /de/ in the words ‘devil’ and ‘demon’ may suggest the rejection of God. Er...anyone with me?er..

By the same token, words like demotivate and dehydrate also supply negative meanings. I can say many English words attached with the prefix /de/, more often than not, mean something negative. Yes. Devil and demon bring along with them negative forces. But, the words like ‘delegate’ and dedicate cannot be mistakenly perceived as the words which contain negative meanings. The /de/ in such words is not prefix rather it is a part of the original root word. This can be related to my opinion. But then again, most importantly, these are just my unwarranted assumptions. They are not to be taken seriously, or to be accepted as true by anyone who might read this.