nightmare
UK/ˈnaɪt.mɛə//ˈnaɪt.mɛɚ/
nightmare noun: a very unpleasant or frightening dream.
Noun
nightmare (plural nightmares)
- A very unpleasant or frightening dream.
- I had a nightmare that I tried to run but could neither move nor breathe.
- July 18 2012, Scott Tobias, AV Club The Dark Knight Riseshttp://www.avclub.com/articles/the-dark-knight-rises-review-batman,82624/
With his crude potato-sack mask and fear-inducing toxins, The Scarecrow, a “psychopharmacologist” at an insane asylum, acts as a conjurer of nightmares, capable of...
- Any bad, miserable, difficult or terrifying situation or experience that arouses anxiety, terror, agony or great displeasure.
- Cleaning up after identity theft can be a nightmare of phone calls and letters.
- If Euston is not typically English, St. Pancras is. Its façade is a nightmare of improbable Gothic. It is fairly plastered with the aesthetic ideals of 1868, and the only beautiful thing about it is Barlow's roof. It is haunted by the stuffier kind of ghost. Yet there is something about the ordered...1941 August, C. Hamilton Ellis, “The English Station”, in Railway Magazine, page 358
- A demon or monster, thought to plague people while they slept and cause a feeling of suffocation and terror during sleep.
- It haunted me, however, more than once, like a night-mare.1817 December 31 (indicated as 1818), [Walter Scott], chapter II, in Rob Roy. […], volume I, Edinburgh: […] James Ballantyne and Co. for Archibald Constable and Co. […]; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees...
- They plague and annoy lazy men-servants and untidy maids with frightful dreams; oppress them as the nightmare; bite them as fleas; and scratch and tear them like cats and dogs; and often in the night frighten, in the shape of owls, thieves and lovers, or, like Will-o-the-wisps, lead them astray...1828, Thomas Keightley, The Fairy Mythology, volume I, London: William Harrison Ainsworth, page 283
- A feeling of extreme anxiety or suffocation experienced during sleep; sleep paralysis.
- The Night-mare generally ſeizes people ſleeping on their backs, and often begins with frightful dreams, which are ſoon ſucceeded by a difficult reſpiration, a violent oppreſſion on the breaſt, and a total privation of voluntary motion.1753, John Bond, An Essay on the Incubus, or Night-mare, London: Printed for D. Wilson and T. Durham, at Plato’s Head, in the Strand, page 2
- Had been afflicted in the night with that strange complaint called the nightmare.1792, James Boswell, in Danziger & Brady (eds.), Boswell: The Great Biographer (Journals 1789–1795), Yale 1989, p. 209
Verb
nightmare (third-person singular simple present nightmares, present participle nightmaring, simple past and past participle nightmared)
- To experience a nightmare.
- Brother Fary of Omaha was nightmaring the rest of the night.1931, The Sleeping Car Conductor, page 16
- It’s been 21,900 hours, 912 days, 130 Saturday nights, 30 months, 3 years since October 16, 1988 when I was stunned awake, straddled by a man I did not know. First I think I’m nightmaring.1998, Andrea Benton Rushing, “Surviving Rape: A Morning/Mourning Ritual”, in Mary E. Odem, Jody Clay-Warner, editors, Confronting Rape and Sexual Assault (Worlds of Women; number 3), SR Books...
- To imagine (someone or something) as in a nightmare.
- She was the last person I’d expected to see, although I had not expected to see anyone at all. For a moment I thought it was a nightmare, and that I was nightmaring the whole thing.1983, Shirley Eskapa, chapter 16, in The Secret-Keeper, New York, N.Y.: St. Martin’s Press, →ISBN, page 99
- Stars have no need of intimidation, which makes them mightier than all the godheads nightmared by mere humanity.2013, Caitlín R[ebekah] Kiernan, “Random Thoughts Before a Fatal Crash”, in The Ape’s Wife and Other Stories, Burton, Mich.: Subterranean Press, →ISBN, page 224
- To trouble (someone or something), as by a nightmare.
- THe day is broke! Melpomene, be gone; / Hag of my Fancy, let me now alone: / Night-mare my ſoul no more; Go take thy flight / Where Traytors Ghoſts keep an eternal night; […]1660 April 23, a Rural Pen [pseudonym; Robert Wild], Iter Boreale. Attempting Somthing upon the Successful and Matchless March of the Lord General George Monck, from Scotland, to London, the Last...
- Thou things imponderable dost price and weigh / By scales untrue ’gainst the gewgaws and gauds / O’ the World; thy ledger ’neath thy head dost lay / For pillow, nightmared with dreams of thy hoards.[1875], Henry Browne [pseudonym; Henry Ellison], “To England”, in Stones from the Quarry; or, Moods of Mind, London: Provost and Co., […], page 308
nightmare meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu
nightmare in Hindi
- dream
- बुरा सपना burā sapnā, दुःस्वप्न duḥsvapna, कुस्वप्न kusvapna, काबूस kābūs, आल-जंजाल āl-jañjāl
nightmare in Tamil
- dream
- அமுக்கி amukki
nightmare in Marathi
- dream
- दुःस्वप्न duḥsvapna
nightmare in Urdu
- dream
- کابوس kābūs, کسوپن kusapn
More languagesFewer languages
- nightmare in Bengali
- দুঃস্বপ্ন duḥśśopno, কুস্বপ্ন kuśśopno
- nightmare in Telugu
- నైట్మేర్ naiṭmēr, పీడకల pīḍakala, అయిన నైట్మేర్ ayina naiṭmēr, నైట్ మేర్ naiṭ mēr
- nightmare in Malayalam
- പേടിസ്വപ്നം pēṭisvapnaṁ, പേടിസപ്നം pēṭisapnaṁ
- nightmare in Kannada
- ದುಃಸ್ವಪ್ನ duḥsvapna
- nightmare in Punjabi
- ਹਥਿਆਰਾ hathiārā, ਉਥਾਰਾ uthārā, ਕਾਬੂਸ kābūs
- nightmare in Gujarati
- દુઃસ્વપ્ન duḥsvapna, ઓથાર othār
- nightmare in Sanskrit
- दुःस्वप्न duḥsvapna
- nightmare in Sinhala
- බියකරු සිහිනය biyakaru sihinaya
- nightmare in Nepali
- दुःस्वप्न duḥsvapna
- nightmare in Pashto
- بد خوب bəd xob
- nightmare in Tagalog
- bangungot
- nightmare in Arabic
- كَابُوس kābūs
- nightmare in Malay
- mimpi buruk, mimpi ngeri
- nightmare in Indonesian
- mimpi buruk
- nightmare in Persian
- کابوس kâbus
- nightmare in Thai
- ฝันร้าย fǎn-ráai
- nightmare in Vietnamese
- ác mộng
- nightmare in Myanmar
- အိပ်မက်ဆိုး ipmakhcui:, ခြောက်အိပ်မက်တခု hkrauk-ipmakta.hku.
- Sindhi
- اُٿَاڙو uthāṛo
- Dhivehi
- ބިރުވެރި ހުވަފެން biruveri huvafen̊
Examples of nightmare in a sentence
- Its façade is a nightmare of improbable Gothic.1941 August, C. Hamilton Ellis, “The English Station”, in Railway Magazine, page 358:
- The Red Holocaust is best interpreted in this light as the bitter fruit of an^([sic]) utopian gambit that was socially misengineered into a dystopic nightmare by despots in humanitarian disguise.2009, Steven Rosefielde, Red Holocaust, page 240:
- I hurried through the arch, was dipped into shadow, and was glad to have my screaming eyes rinsed clean of this vision of a scrabbling, gibbering hell, worse than any nightmared by Bosch or Goya.2016, Daniel Kraus, The Death and Life of Zebulon Finch; Volume Two: Empire Decayed, New York, N.Y.: Simon & Schuster BFYR, →ISBN, page 122:
Synonyms of nightmare
Forms of nightmare
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | nightmares |
| alternative form (obsolete) | night-mare |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | nightmares |
| present participle | nightmaring |
| past participle | nightmared |
| past | nightmared |
Origin of nightmare
From Middle English nyghtmare, from Old English *nihtmare, equivalent to night + mare (“evil spirit believed to afflict a sleeping person”). Cognate with Scots nichtmare and nichtmeer, Dutch nachtmerrie, Middle Low German nachtmār, German Nachtmahr.
Words formed from nightmare
Phrases with nightmare
Questions about nightmare
- What does nightmare mean?
- Nightmare means a very unpleasant or frightening dream.
- What is nightmare in Hindi?
- Nightmare in Hindi is बुरा सपना (burā sapnā), दुःस्वप्न (duḥsvapna), कुस्वप्न (kusvapna). See Nightmare meaning in Hindi.
- How do you use nightmare in a sentence?
- Its façade is a nightmare of improbable Gothic.
- What part of speech is nightmare?
- Nightmare can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce nightmare?
- Nightmare is pronounced /ˈnaɪt.mɛə/ (UK).
- What is the plural of nightmare?
- The plural of nightmare is nightmares.
Words near nightmare in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: nightmare (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-nightmare.ogg.
Cite this entry: “nightmare.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/nightmare. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.