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nightmare

nightmare is defined in Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (1913) with 2 senses. The full text of each entry is reproduced verbatim below.

Definitions

  1. 1.A condition in sleep usually caused by improper eating or by digestive or nervous troubles, and characterized by a sense of extreme uneasiness or discomfort (as of weight on the chest or stomach, impossibility of motion or speech, etc.), or by frightful or oppressive dreams, from which one wakes after extreme anxiety, in a troubled state of mind; incubus. Dunglison.
  2. 2.Hence, any overwhelming, oppressive, or stupefying influence.

Source: Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913 edition (public domain, via GCIDE / Project Gutenberg).

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