Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The Devil; Satan.
  • noun An evil spirit.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun colloq., colloq. An evil spirit; the evil one; the devil.
  • noun colloq. One of bad disposition; a fiend.
  • noun (Meteor.), India A dust storm.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun An evil djinn of Arab mythology, Satan, devil

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun (Islam) a rebellious jinni who leads men astray

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Arabic šayṭān, from Ge'ez śayṭān, from Aramaic sāṭānā, from Hebrew śāṭān; see śṭn in Semitic roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Arabic شيطان (shayTān) (Satan, devil)

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Examples

  • The true shaitan is not a posturing pretender to romantic rebellion, not a puffed-up fool in black and scarlet, but a harlequin in ragged motley, dark and light, grinning wickedly but with sorrow in his eyes.

    THE HALLS OF PENTHEUS -- PART ONE Hal Duncan 2007

  • It isn't until the Book of Chronicles, merely fourth century BC, that the word shaitan is used to mean a being, and not only an attribute of God. "

    The Satanic Verses Rushdie, Salman 1967

  • In calling him shaitan, "satan," people were not always speaking metaphorically.

    Igor Cherstich: Qaddafi Death Shows He Was Just a Man Igor Cherstich 2011

  • In calling him shaitan, "satan," people were not always speaking metaphorically.

    Igor Cherstich: Qaddafi Death Shows He Was Just a Man Igor Cherstich 2011

  • I didn't know I was a son of Sodom, a sexual shaitan in the making, but I was already on the side of the rebels.

    THE HALLS OF PENTHEUS -- PART ONE Hal Duncan 2007

  • They're the shaitan seen as an integral part of religion as a dialectical process, a antithesis.

    THE HALLS OF PENTHEUS -- PART FIVE Hal Duncan 2007

  • They're the shaitan seen as an integral part of religion as a dialectical process, a antithesis.

    Archive 2007-04-01 Hal Duncan 2007

  • No matter how much they mean well, they cannot fight the shaitan — the devil — that lives within.

    Beneath My Mother’s Feet AMJED QAMAR 2008

  • No matter how much they mean well, they cannot fight the shaitan — the devil — that lives within.

    Beneath My Mother’s Feet AMJED QAMAR 2008

  • I stand in its ruins and I say, I'm the shaitan they hate, those fundamentalists and conservatives.

    Wisdom, Justice And Mercy Hal Duncan 2006

Comments

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  • FreeRice.com says it means "demon."

    January 11, 2008