demo

¹ American  

[dem-oh] / ˈdɛm oʊ /

noun

plural

demos

1. demonstration.

2. demonstrator.

3. a recording of a new song or of one performed by an unknown singer or singing group, distributed to disc jockeys, recording companies, etc., to demonstrate the merits of the song or performer.

4. demolition.

   He does flooring and demo for a living.

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verb (used with object)

demoed, demoing

1. to try out or exhibit the use of (a product, process, or the like).

   You can demo the game without downloading or buying it.

2. to record (a song) to demonstrate the merits of the song or performer.

Demo ² American  

[dem-oh] / ˈdɛm oʊ /

noun

Informal.

plural

Demos

1. a member of the Democratic Party; Democrat.

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demo- ³ American  

1. a combining form occurring in loanwords from Greek, where it meant “people” (democratic ); on this model, used in the formation of compound words (demography ).

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demo ¹ British  

/ ˈdɛməʊ /

noun

1. short for demonstration

2. 1. a demonstration record or tape, used for audition purposes

   2. a demonstration of a prototype system

3. short for demonstrator

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demo- ² British  

combining form

1. indicating people or population

   demography

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Etymology

Origin of demo¹

1935–40; by shortening; -o

Origin of Demo²

An Americanism dating back to 1785–95

Origin of demo-³

< Greek dēmo-, combining form of dêmos

Example Sentences

Instead, their demos sparked a record label bidding war.

From BBC

"Otis had a demo of a song, and I said, 'Send it to me'," says Maddell, picking up the story.

From BBC

Furiosa’s booth was swarmed with engineers from big tech firms, including Google, Meta and Amazon.com, wanting to see a live demo of the chip.

From The Wall Street Journal

When Musk returned to the stage a year later, he demoed a prototype called Bumblebee, with visible wires and actuators.

From The Wall Street Journal

Workers at Butterfly Effect, an artificial-intelligence startup with Chinese roots, gathered in March to count down to the launch of a demo of a new AI-powered tool called Manus.

From The Wall Street Journal

Related Words

• album
• disk