Word.ws English Dictionary

nightmare fuel

nightmare fuel noun: something that is capable of inducing nightmares, often by being highly disturbing.

Noun

nightmare fuel (uncountable)

  1. (informal) Something that is capable of inducing nightmares, often by being highly disturbing.

Origin of nightmare fuel

Coined in an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 in 1993 to describe a laughing animatronic in the movie Santa Claus.

Questions about nightmare fuel

What does nightmare fuel mean?
Nightmare fuel means something that is capable of inducing nightmares, often by being highly disturbing.
What part of speech is nightmare fuel?
Nightmare fuel is a noun.

Words near nightmare fuel in the dictionary

  1. nightmarcher
  2. nightmarchers
  3. nightmare
  4. nightmare disorder
  5. nightmare disorders
  6. nightmare fuel
  7. nightmared
  8. nightmareless
  9. nightmarelike
  10. nightmares
  11. nightmarey

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: nightmare fuel (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.

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