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nightmare

Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A dream arousing feelings of intense fear, horror, and distress.
  • noun An event or experience that is intensely distressing.
  • noun A demon or spirit once thought to plague sleeping people.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun An incubus or evil spirit that oppresses people during sleep.
  • noun An oppressed state during sleep, accompanied by a feeling of intense fear, horror, or anxiety, or of inability to escape from some threatened danger or from pursuing phantoms or monsters. Also called incubus.
  • noun Any overpowering, oppressive, or stupefying influence.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun archaic A fiend or incubus formerly supposed to cause trouble in sleep.
  • noun A trerrifying or oppressive dream characterized by a sense of helplessness in the face of danger, extreme uneasiness or discomfort (as of weight on the chest or stomach, impossibility of motion or speech, etc.) or extreme anxiety, from which one wakes in a troubled state of mind.
  • noun Any overwhelming, oppressive, or terrifying experience resembling a nightmare{2} especially in the inability to escape from an unpleasant situation.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A female demon or monster, thought to plague people while they slept and cause a feeling of suffocation and terror during sleep.
  • noun A very bad or frightening dream.
  • noun figuratively Any bad, miserable, difficult or terrifying situation or experience that arouses anxiety, terror, agony or great displeasure.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a situation resembling a terrifying dream
  • noun a terrifying or deeply upsetting dream

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, a female demon that afflicts sleeping people : night, night; see night + mare, goblin (from Old English; see mer- in Indo-European roots).]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English nightemare, niȝtmare, equivalent to night +‎ mare (“evil spirit believed to afflict a sleeping person”). Cognate with Scots nichtmare, nichtmeer ("nightmare"), Dutch nachtmerrie ("nightmare"), Middle Low German nachtmār ("nightmare"), German Nachtmahr ("nightmare").

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Examples

  • If MAC is not allowed to protest, it has threatened to turn the day into what it called a "nightmare."

    Muslim Group Applies to Protest Royal Wedding 2011

  • To expect politicians to correct this nightmare is a fantasy.

    Oh, Poor Judge Bybee! « Antiwar.com Blog 2009

  • It's also helpful to realize, say sleep researchers, that what you call a nightmare may or may not actually be one.

    Janet Kinosian: A Short Guide To Understanding Your Nightmares 2009

  • The three Duke lacrosse players accused of sexual assault in an explosive case have now been cleared, all charges dropped, the young men speaking out, marking the end of what one called a nightmare that lasted more than a year.

    CNN Transcript Apr 11, 2007 2007

  • On the diplomatic front, the U.N. secretary-general, Kofi Annan, is pushing the Security Council to come up with a plan by the end of the week to end what he calls the nightmare for civilians in Israel and Lebanon.

    CNN Transcript Aug 10, 2006 2006

  • He fled abroad and landowner Maria Burt was left to pay for their removal in what she called a nightmare experience.

    BBC News - Home 2012

  • But higher education proved to be no respite for the desperate teen, which he described as a "nightmare."

    NYDN Rss LINDSAY GOLDWERT 2012

  • Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair said on Wednesday he could have not have imagined what he called the nightmare that unfolded in Iraq but still ...

    Iraq Updates - Latest News 2010

  • In an editorial, the paper considers the fallout for India from what it calls the nightmare on Wall Street, and says things aren't too bleak, with an industrial growth rate of 7.1 per cent in July and the global price of oil falling below $95.

    CFR.org - 2008

  • In an editorial, the paper considers the fallout for India from what it calls the nightmare on Wall Street, and says things aren't too bleak, with an industrial growth rate of 7.1 per cent in July and the global price of oil falling below $95.

    CFR.org - 2008

Comments

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  • brtom commented on the word nightmare

    -- Gave it to them on a hot plate, Myles Crawford said, the whole bloody history.

    Nightmare from which you will never awake.

    Joyce, Ulysses, 7

    January 2, 2007

  • whichbe commented on the word nightmare

    An lore, demonic creature or dread spirit that takes the form of a black horse that can breathe fire, and sometimes fire comes out of their hooves as well. Their eyes glow red. Sometimes, the nightmare is said to be able to fly (even though they have no wings), and sometimes, the nightmare likes to eat human flesh. They can communicate with their riders through telepathy, and they can travel in other dimensions as well. In some legends, it represents all that is evil in the land and not necessarily from the underworld.

    The Nightmare is sometimes referred to as a hell horse or a demon horse. They will serve as mounts for powerful undead, demons, and other evil creatures.

    (from Mystical Creature A Day)

    May 30, 2008

  • dailyword commented on the word nightmare

    Artie sometimes has these about loosing Jim.

    October 20, 2012