Definition of "nightmare" in Anglais

noun

1. 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 turning his patients’ most terrifying anxieties against them.

2. (figuratively) 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.

3. (now rare) A demon or monster, thought to plague people while they slept and cause a feeling of suffocation and terror during sleep.

4. (now chiefly historical) A feeling of extreme anxiety or suffocation experienced during sleep; sleep paralysis.

   • Had been afflicted in the night with that strange complaint called the nightmare.

verb

1. (intransitive) To experience a nightmare.

2. (transitive) To imagine (someone or something) as in a nightmare.

3. (transitive) To trouble (someone or something), as by a nightmare.