The name "Asmodai" is believed to derive from Avestan language "*aēšma-daēva", where "aēšma" means "wrath", and "daēva" signifies "demon". While the "daēva" Aēšma is thus Zoroastrianism's demon of wrath and is also well-attested as such, the compound "aēšma-daēva" is not attested in scripture. It is nonetheless likely that such a form did exist, and that the Book of Tobit's "Asmodaios" () and the Talmud's "Ashmedai" () reflect it. In the Zoroastrian and Middle Persian demonology, there did exist the conjuncted form "khashm-dev", where the word "dev" was the same as "daeva".