What does "nightmare" mean in the dictionary?
Soon afterward, the dictionary says, “nightmare” took on its familiar figurative meaning: an “oppressive fear; a frightening experience or thing; a source of fear or anxiety.”
What does "mare" mean in English?
The “mare” that means an adult female horse was a merging of two Old English words: mearh (horse) and mīre (mare). And in case you’re wondering, the word “horse” also showed up in Old English (spelled hors ).
What does the OED mean by nightmare?
The OED says “nightmare” in that citation refers to a “female spirit or monster supposed to settle on and produce a feeling of suffocation in a sleeping person or animal.”
What is the compound nightmare?
The compound “nightmare,” which first appeared in Middle English writing, originally referred to the evil spirit, not the feeling of suffocation or a scary dream.
Where did the word "nightmare" come from?
The earliest example of “nightmare” in the Oxford English Dictionary is from “The Life of St. Michael” (circa 1300), found in The South-English Legendary, a collection of manuscripts chronicling the lives of church figures:
Who wrote the first example of a good remedy for stranglyng of the Nyght mare?
The first Oxford example is from the 1562 second volume of A New Herball, a three-book work by the English botanist William Turner : “A good remedy agaynst the stranglyng of the nyght mare.”
Who said this was no fantastick imagination, nor fit of the Night-mare?
Here’s an example from The Marriage of Belphegor, a 1675 translation of a work by Machiavelli: “This was no fantastick imagination, nor fit of the Night-mare.”
What does "mare" mean?
Definition of mare. (Entry 1 of 3) : a female horse or other equine animal especially when fully mature or of breeding age.
When was the word "mare" first used?
First Known Use of mare. Noun (1) before the 12th century, in the meaning defined above. Noun (2) 1860, in the meaning defined above. Noun (3) before the 12th century, in the meaning defined above.
What is a nightmare?
Definition of nightmare. 1 : an evil spirit formerly thought to oppress people during sleep. 2 : a frightening dream that usually awakens the sleeper. 3 : something (such as an experience, situation, or object) having the monstrous character of a nightmare or producing a feeling of anxiety or terror. Other Words from nightmare Synonyms & Antonyms ...
What does it mean to dream of a nightmare?
English Language Learners Definition of nightmare. : a dream that frightens a sleeping person : a very bad dream. : a very bad or frightening experience or situation. See the full definition for nightmare in the English Language Learners Dictionary.
What is a mare?
A mare ( Old English: mære, Old Dutch: mare, Proto-Slavic * mara; mara in Old High German, Old Norse, and Swedish) is a malicious entity in Germanic and Slavic folklore that rides on people's chests while they sleep, bringing on nightmares.
Where does the word "mare" come from?
The word "mare" comes (through Middle English mare) from Old English feminine noun mære (which had numerous variant forms, including mare, mere, and mær ). These in turn come from Proto-Germanic *marōn. *Marōn is the source of Old Norse: mara, from which are derived Swedish: mara; Icelandic: mara; Faroese: marra; Danish: mare; Norwegian: mare/mara, Dutch: ( nacht) merrie, and German: ( Nacht) mahr. The -mar in French cauchemar ("nightmare") is borrowed from the Germanic through Old French mare.
What is the root of the word "mara"?
In Norwegian and Danish, the words for "nightmare" are mareritt and mareridt respectively, which can be directly translated as "mare-ride".
What did the people believe about the mare?
People believed that the mare drained people - as well as cattle and horses - of energy and/or blood at night. Protection practices included: drinking coffee before sleeping, taking the mare's hat, throwing a piece of a noose at the demon, sleeping with a leather, wedding belt or a scythe,
What happens if a woman is promised to marry a man but then he married another?
If a woman was promised to marry a man, but then he married another, the rejected one could also become a mare during the nights. A very common belief was that one would become a mare if they mispronounced a prayer - e.g. Zmoraś Mario instead of Zdrowaś Mario (an inverted version of Hail Mary ).
What is Mare in Polish folklore?
Poland. Mare from Polish folklore - graphics by Kasia Walentynowicz. Etymologically, Polish zmora/mara is connected to Mara/ Marzanna, a demon/goddess of winter. It could be a soul of a person (alive or dead) such as a sinful woman, someone wronged or someone who died without confession.
What does the name "Mareridt" mean?
the Swedish word "mardröm" literally meaning mara-dream, the Norwegian word "mareritt" and the Danish "mareridt", both meaning mare-ride or the Icelandic word "martröð" meaning mara-dreaming repeatedly).
Where did the word "nightmare" come from?
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, nightmare derives from the Middle English (from the period 1150 to 1500) word ‘mare’, which meant a ‘female evil spirit thought to lie upon and suffocate sleepers’.
What is the name of the saga where the mares are depicted?
Another of John Henry Fuseli's depictions of mares | © John Henry Fuseli/WikiCommons. In Scandinavian culture, the mare features in Ynglinga saga, a legendary Old Norse saga from the 13th century.
What are the creatures that invade sleep?
In German fables, there are many creatures said to invade peaceful sleep. The alp, trud, mare, and mart are all malevolent nocturnal spirits associated with nightmares and along with them come a number of myths about how best to prevent them from entering the home.
Can dreams wake you from a deep sleep?
From teeth falling out to being late, or even being naked in a public place, a particularly vivid dream can wake us from a deep sleep. We’re all familiar with the uneasy, restless or downright terrifying feelings brought on by nightmares but the creepy origin of the word itself is less well known. To uncover its roots, journey back to a time when the intricacies of the human mind were strange and mysterious – and more easily explained by evil spirits and mystical beings.
What is the Nightmare?
Then what is the nightmare exactly? Nowadays, the word designates a bad dream. When we experience strong, frightening emotions while dreaming, the sensation is so overwhelming that we wake up from the dream. The impression is so strong that we have trouble sleeping again. Some of the dream sensation lingers and makes us experience presences in the room, regardless whether this is true or not. The whole phenomenon is explained psychologically.
What does it mean when you are hg-ridden by the night mare?
Either people or horses are ridden by the nightmare. When a person goes to bed, he suddenly feels a pressure on the body, usually in the area of the chest. Sometimes the pressure travels from the feet to the head. The person cannot breathe.
What is the German word for a demon horse?
A nightmarish vision of a demon horse (CC BY-SA 2.0) The German word is Mahr. This is seldom used and sometimes rendered as Nachtmahr, but there is no confusion with a female horse because modern German has lost the corresponding cognate of ‘mare’ or merrie.
How to identify a nightmare?
In folk stories the nightmare is identified by a particular technique. When the victim complains of being ridden by the mare he is usually given the advice to hold a knife to his chest on the following night. The person does this but consciously or subconsciously misunderstands the advice and holds the knife pointed upwards. When the mare attacks him in the night, she screams and disappears. On the following morning, the woman who is the mare is found injured or dead. She is usually the one who gave the advice about the knife in the first place. The motif with the knife is very common in Belgium.
What is the name of the evil spirits and night horse?
Mara – Evil Spirits and The Night Horse. In Dutch, the nightmare is known as the maar or mare, sometimes called nachtmaar or nachtmare, analogous to the English word. Over time, the Dutch word changed into nachtmerrie where merrie means female horse. We see that the folk etymology of ‘night horse’ was very common.
What does it mean when someone lies on their back?
Most folklore reports seem to indicate the same. I wonder whether this position somehow encourages this strange phenomenon. Besides REM atonia there is another experience which might shed light on the subject, and this is sleep paralysis. In these cases, the person incidentally experiences paralysis when falling asleep. According to experts, sleep paralysis occurs mostly when the person lies on his back.
Is the nightmare a horse?
Most people today who have heard that ‘the Nightmare’ is an actual being in European folklore and not just a certain type of dream-state, associate the being with horses. A mare is indeed a horse—but this interpretation is not correct. The mare of ‘the nightmare’ is a demon; and the word for horse and the word for nightmare derive ...
