nightmare
Pluralnightmares
Pluralnightmares
- 1A scary dream that can wake you up feeling afraid or upset.
Like a scary movie that plays in your head while you sleep.
She woke from a nightmare with her heart pounding.
The little boy had a nightmare about being chased through a dark forest.
UsageSay you had a nightmare about something.
Note
- 2A very bad or scary situation that makes you feel upset or afraid.
Like being stuck in a really bad day that just won't end.
Losing my keys before work turned the whole day into a nightmare.
The long wait at the airport was a complete nightmare.
UsageSay a complete nightmare or a logistical nightmare.
Similarordeal, disaster, horror, hell, torment
Note
- 3An evil spirit that people once believed sat on sleepers and made them feel unable to breathe.
It haunted me, however, more than once, like a night-mare.
1817, [Walter Scott], Rob RoyHere, night-mare means an evil spirit thought to sit on sleepers and frighten them.I started, hourly, from dreams of unutterable fear, to find the hot breath of the thing upon my face, and its vast weight—an incarnate Night-Mare that I had no power to shake off—incumbent eternally upon my heart!
1843, Edgar Allan Poe, The Black CatNote
Less common meanings
- 4A scary feeling of not being able to move or breathe while falling asleep or waking up.
Had been afflicted in the night with that strange complaint called the nightmare.
1792, James Boswell, in Danziger & Brady (eds.)Here, nightmare means a scary feeling at night of not being able to breathe or move.Note
- 5To have a frightening dream while you are asleep.
Every night, Liesel would nightmare.
2006, Markus Zusak, “The Woman with the Iron Fist” - 6To trouble or scare someone, the way a bad dream does.
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” - 7To imagine someone or something in a scary, dreamlike way.
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”
Showing meanings only.
Use it in a sentence
Write your own sentence with nightmare, and AI will tell you whether it fits and which meaning you used.
Origin
It comes from an old English word made of "night" plus "mare," which meant an evil spirit thought to trouble people while they slept.
Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 2 facts
- Nightmare derives from an Old English compound corresponding to night plus mare. en.wiktionary.org
- Mare meant an evil spirit believed to trouble sleeping people. en.wikipedia.org