nightmare: [13] The mare of nightmare is not the same word as mare ‘female horse’. It comes from Old English mære, which denoted a sort of evil spirit or goblin which sat on sleepers’ chests and gave them bad dreams. That is what the compound nightmare meant too when it emerged in the early Middle English period, and the metaphorical application to the bad dream supposedly caused by this incubus is not recorded until the mid-16th century. => yell
nightmare (n.)
late 13c., "an evil female spirit afflicting sleepers with a feeling of suffocation," compounded from night + mare (3) "goblin that causes nightmares, incubus." Meaning shifted mid-16c. from the incubus to the suffocating sensation it causes. Sense of "any bad dream" first recorded 1829; that of "very distressing experience" is from 1831. Cognate with Middle Dutch nachtmare, German Nachtmahr.
实用例句
1. Taking my son Peter to a restaurant was a nightmare.
带我儿子彼得外出吃饭简直糟糕透了。
来自柯林斯例句
2. In practice a graduate tax is an administrative nightmare.
毕业税具体操作起来不啻一场行政噩梦。
来自柯林斯例句
3. His abrasive wit and caustic comments were an interviewer's nightmare.
他睿智刁钻，评论尖刻，对任何采访他的人而言都是梦魇。
来自柯林斯例句
4. They began to recover slowly from their nightmare of pain and suffering.
他们开始从痛苦的梦魇中慢慢恢复过来。
来自柯林斯例句
5. Discovering your child takes drugs is a nightmare scenario for most parents.
