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Apparition vs Nightmare - What's the difference?

apparition | nightmare | Related terms |

Apparition is a related term of nightmare.


As nouns the difference between apparition and nightmare

is that apparition is an act of becoming visible; appearance; visibility while nightmare is a female demon or monster, thought to plague people while they slept and cause a feeling of suffocation and terror during sleep.

apparition

English

Noun

(en noun)
  • An act of becoming visible; appearance; visibility.
  • The sudden apparition of the Spaniards. – .
    The apparition of Lawyer Clippurse occasioned much speculation in that portion of the world. – .
  • The thing appearing; a visible object; a form.
  • Which apparition , it seems, was you. – Tatler.
  • An unexpected, wonderful, or preternatural appearance; especially something such as a ghost or phantom.
  • The heavenly bands . . . a glorious apparition. – .
    I think it is the weakness of mine eyes That shapes this monstrous apparition .
  • (astronomy) The first appearance of a star or other luminary after having been invisible or obscured;—opposed to occultation.
  • Synonyms

    * (act of becoming visible) appearance * (a preternatural appearance) vision * See also

    nightmare

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A female demon or monster, thought to plague people while they slept and cause a feeling of suffocation and terror during sleep.
  • * 1817 , (Walter Scott), Rob Roy :
  • It haunted me, however, more than once, like the nightmare .
  • *1843 , (Edgar Allan Poe), ‘The Black Cat’:
  • *:I started, hourly, from dreams of unutterable fear, to find the hot breath of the thing upon my face, and its vast weight—an incarnate Night-Mare that I had no power to shake off—incumbent eternally upon my heart!
  • A very bad 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 Rises [http://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.
  • (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.

    Synonyms

    * (demon said to torment sleepers) incubus (male demon afflicting female sleeper), succubus * (bad dream) night terror (sleep disorder)