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Mirage vs Nightmare - What's the difference?

mirage | nightmare | Related terms |

In figuratively terms the difference between mirage and nightmare

is that mirage is an illusion while nightmare is any bad, miserable, difficult or terrifying situation or experience that arouses anxiety, terror, agony or great displeasure.

As nouns the difference between mirage and nightmare

is that mirage is an optical phenomenon in which light is refracted through a layer of hot air close to the ground, giving the appearance of there being refuge in the distance 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.

As a verb mirage

is to cause to appear as or like a mirage.

mirage

English

Noun

(en noun)
  • An optical phenomenon in which light is refracted through a layer of hot air close to the ground, giving the appearance of there being refuge in the distance.
  • (figuratively) An illusion.
  • See also

    * (Mirage) * fata morgana * illusion * optical illusion

    Verb

    (mirag)
  • To cause to appear as or like a mirage.
  • * {{quote-book, year=1915, author=E. Phillips Oppenheim, title=Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo, chapter=, edition= citation
  • , passage=All that had been in his mind seemed suddenly miraged before him—the removal of Hunterleys, his own wife's failing health. }}
  • * {{quote-book, year=1901, author=A. E. W. Mason, title=Ensign Knightley and Other Stories, chapter=, edition= citation
  • , passage=The vision of a salon was miraged before her, with herself in the middle deftly manipulating the destinies of a nation. }}

    Anagrams

    * ----

    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)