What a Deity Is

A deity is a being held to be divine: to possess power beyond the human and, in most traditions, to govern some domain of nature, society or the inner life. The category gathers the gods and goddesses of the world's religions and mythologies, from the great pantheons of Greece, Rome, Egypt, India, Mesopotamia and Scandinavia to the local, household and ancestral deities of many peoples.

What counts as a deity varies. Polytheistic traditions recognise many, often organised into families and hierarchies; monotheistic traditions recognise one and reclassify the gods of others as figures of a different order; and some traditions blur the line between a high god, a deified ancestor and a powerful spirit.