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Nightmare vs Haunt - What's the difference?

nightmare | haunt |

In now|_|rare|lang=en terms the difference between nightmare and haunt

is that nightmare is a female demon or monster, thought to plague people while they slept and cause a feeling of suffocation and terror during sleep while haunt is to live habitually; to stay, to remain.

As nouns the difference between nightmare and haunt

is that nightmare is a female demon or monster, thought to plague people while they slept and cause a feeling of suffocation and terror during sleep while haunt is a place at which one is regularly found; a hangout.

As a verb haunt is

to inhabit, or visit frequently (most often used in reference to ghosts).

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)

    haunt

    English

    Alternative forms

    * (l) (Scotland)

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To inhabit, or visit frequently (most often used in reference to ghosts).
  • A couple of ghosts haunt the old, burnt-down house.
  • * Shakespeare
  • You wrong me, sir, thus still to haunt my house.
  • * Jonathan Swift
  • those cares that haunt the court and town
  • * Fairfax
  • Foul spirits haunt my resting place.
  • To make uneasy, restless.
  • The memory of his past failures haunted him.
  • To stalk, to follow
  • The policeman haunted him, following him everywhere.
  • To live habitually; to stay, to remain.
  • * 1526 , William Tyndale, trans. Bible , John XI:
  • Jesus therfore walked no more openly amonge the iewes: butt went his waye thence vnto a countre ny to a wildernes into a cite called effraym, and there haunted with his disciples.
  • * 1590 , Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene , III.x:
  • yonder in that wastefull wildernesse / Huge monsters haunt , and many dangers dwell
  • To accustom; habituate; make accustomed to.
  • * Wyclif
  • Haunt thyself to pity.
  • To practise; to devote oneself to.
  • * Ascham
  • Leave honest pleasure, and haunt no good pastime.
  • To persist in staying or visiting.
  • * Shakespeare
  • I've charged thee not to haunt about my doors.

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A place at which one is regularly found; a hangout.
  • *
  • * 1868 , , "Kitty's Class Day":
  • Both Jack and Fletcher had graduated the year before, but still took an interest in their old haunts , and patronized the fellows who were not yet through.
  • * 1984 , Timothy Loughran and Natalie Angier, " Science: Striking It Rich in Wyoming," Time , 8 Oct.:
  • Wyoming has been a favorite haunt of paleontologists for the past century ever since westering pioneers reported that many vertebrate fossils were almost lying on the ground.
  • (dialect) A ghost.
  • * 1891 , Mary Noailles Murfree, In the "Stranger People's" Country , Nebraska 2005, p. 93:
  • Harnts don't wander much ginerally,’ he said. ‘They hand round thar own buryin'-groun' mainly.’
  • A feeding place for animals.Oxford English Dictionary , 2nd ed., 1989.
  • References

    Anagrams

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