1670s, from Latinized form of Greek demiourgos, literally "public or skilled worker" (from demos "common people;" see demotic + ergos "work;" see organ).The title of a magistrate in some Peloponnesian city-states and the Achæan League; taken in Platonic philosophy as a name for the maker of the world. In the Gnostic system, "conceived as a being subordinate to the Supreme Being, and sometimes as the author of evil" [OED].