Acedia comes from a combination of the negative prefix a- and the Greek noun kēdos, meaning "care, concern, or grief." (The Greek word akēdeia became acedia in Late Latin, and that spelling was retained in English.) Acedia initially referred specifically to the "deadly sin" of sloth.

What is the demon of acedia?

“The demon of acedia -- also called the noonday demon -- is the one that causes the most serious trouble of all. . . . He makes it seem that the sun barely moves, if at all, and . . . he instills in the heart of the monk a hatred for the place, a hatred for his very life itself.”

How do you use acedia in a sentence?

Few of us who read habitually ever feel called upon to defend the practice-a kind of reader's acedia, an occupational hazard. The distraction is rooted in acedia, the ancient soul-scourge about which the church fathers knew and wrote so much. In the Middle Ages, acedia, spiritual torpor or gloom, was regarded as a sin.