nightmare

[ nahyt-mair ]
See synonyms for nightmare on Thesaurus.com
noun
  1. a terrifying dream in which the dreamer experiences feelings of helplessness, extreme anxiety, sorrow, etc.

  2. a condition, thought, or experience suggestive of a nightmare: the nightmare of his years in prison.

  1. (formerly) a monster or evil spirit believed to oppress persons during sleep.

Origin of nightmare

1
Middle English word dating back to 1250–1300; see origin at night, mare2

synonym study For nightmare

1. See dream.

Other words for nightmare

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use nightmare in a sentence

  • New York is like one of those nightmares a certain class of writers project and label 'Earth in the Year 2000.'

    Ancestors | Gertrude Atherton
  • It was enough to give a man nightmares, to watch that line of High-Pockets Joneses advancing across an open composing-room.

    Nine Men in Time | Noel Miller Loomis
  • With such a faculty Balzac could not be, like Edgar Poe, merely a narrator of nightmares.

    Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A -- Z | Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
  • Why this horrible persecution that dug into the depths of his own nightmares to haunt him?

    The Dark Door | Alan Edward Nourse
  • It does not belong to the commonplace world; it is of such stuff as dreams, including nightmares, are made of.

    Humanly Speaking | Samuel McChord Crothers

British Dictionary definitions for nightmare

nightmare

/ (ˈnaɪtˌmɛə) /


noun
  1. a terrifying or deeply distressing dream

    • an event or condition resembling a terrifying dream: the nightmare of shipwreck

    • (as modifier): a nightmare drive

  1. a thing that is feared

  2. (formerly) an evil spirit supposed to harass or suffocate sleeping people

Origin of nightmare

1
C13 (meaning: incubus; C16: bad dream): from night + Old English mare, mære evil spirit, from Germanic; compare Old Norse mara incubus, Polish zmora, French cauchemar nightmare

Derived forms of nightmare

  • nightmarish, adjective
  • nightmarishly, adverb
  • nightmarishness, noun

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012