nightmares

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of nightmare.

   The soldier was haunted by nightmares for years after the war.

   Stress and poor sleep often trigger vivid nightmares.

   Note

   The plural carries every meaning of the singular: bad dreams, the figurative ordeals people survive rather than sleep through, and an older sense in which nightmares were demons thought to plague sleepers with suffocating terror. One spelling serves two words, since the form is also the verb's present tense. After has or have, or with a determiner (her nightmares, two nightmares), it is always the noun.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present indicative of nightmare.

   Note

   The verb behind this form works both ways. Without an object it means having bad dreams: the child nightmares through the night. With an object it means troubling someone as a nightmare would, as when a memory nightmares a survivor, or picturing someone as a nightmare might. A singular subject directly before it is the surest sign that this is the verb and not the plural noun.

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