From WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006) [wn]:
demo
n 1: a visual presentation showing how something works; "the
lecture was accompanied by dramatic demonstrations"; "the
lecturer shot off a pistol as a demonstration of the
startle response" [syn: demonstration, demo]
v 1: give an exhibition of to an interested audience; "She shows
her dogs frequently"; "We will demo the new software in
Washington" [syn: show, demo, exhibit, present,
demonstrate]
From The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (8 July 2008) [foldoc]:
demo
/de'moh/ 1. A demonstration of a product, often of an early
version or prototype. A demo is a far more effective way of
inducing bugs to manifest themselves than any number of test
runs, especially when important people are watching.
2. demo version.
3. A program written to demonstrate the programmer's coding
ability and/or the power of the computer it runs on. Such
demos are nearly always written in machine code and
traditionally feature scrolling text about the author, his
friends, his code and anything else he fancies and animated
graphics.
[Jargon File]
(1994-11-04)
From Jargon File (4.4.4, 14 Aug 2003) [jargon]:
demo
/de'moh/
[short for `demonstration']
1. v. To demonstrate a product or prototype. A far more effective way
of inducing bugs to manifest than any number of test runs,
especially when important people are watching.
2. n. The act of demoing. "I've gotta give a demo of the drool-proof
interface; how does it work again?"
3. n. Esp. as demo version, can refer either to an early,
barely-functional version of a program which can be used for
demonstration purposes as long as the operator uses exactly the right
commands and skirts its numerous bugs, deficiencies, and unimplemented
portions, or to a special version of a program (frequently with some
features crippled) which is distributed at little or no cost to the
user for enticement purposes.
4. [demoscene] A sequence of demoeffects (usually) combined with
self-composed music and hand-drawn ("pixelated") graphics. These days
(1997) usually built to attend a compo. Often called eurodemos
outside Europe, as most of the demoscene activity seems to have
gathered in northern Europe and especially Scandinavia. See also
intro, dentro.