nightmare

English

/ˈnaɪt.mɛə/, /naɪt.mɛəɹ/

noun
Definitions
  • (now) A demon or monster, thought to plague people while they slept and cause a feeling of suffocation and terror during sleep.
  • (obsolete) sleep Sleep paralysis.
  • A very bad or frightening dream.
  • (figuratively) Any bad, miserable, difficult or terrifying situation or experience that arouses anxiety, terror, agony or great displeasure.

Etymology

Inherited from Middle English nightmare inherited from Old English *nihtmare com from English night (noun sense, the conventional time for a person to be in bed, verb sense) + English mare (female horse, evil spirit believed to afflict a sleeping person)root from Proto-Indo-European *mer- (die, rub, wear away, sea, gleam, sparkle, pound, glimmer, weave, pack, bind, plait, girl, young boy).

Origin

Proto-Indo-European

*mer-

Gloss

die, rub, wear away, sea, gleam, sparkle, pound, glimmer, weave, pack, bind, plait, girl, young boy

Concept
Semantic Field

Time

Ontological Category

Action/Process

Kanji

海

Emoji
🎲

Timeline

Distribution of cognates by language

Geogrpahic distribution of cognates

Cognates and derived terms