Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A bugaboo.
- n. A fearsome imaginary creature, especially one evoked to frighten children.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. Something that causes terror; especially, something that causes needless fright or apprehension.
- Occasioning causeless fear: as, “such bugbear thoughts,”
- To alarm with imaginary or idle fears.
Wiktionary
- n. An ongoing problem; a recurring obstacle or adversity.
- n. A source of dread; resentment; or irritation.
- n. An imaginary creature meant to inspire fear in children.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. Same as bugaboo.
- v. To alarm with idle phantoms.
WordNet 3.0
- n. an imaginary monster used to frighten children
- n. an object of dread or apprehension
Etymologies
- Obsolete bug, hobgoblin (from Middle English bugge, perhaps from Welsh bwg) + bear2.
Examples
“My particular bugbear is the supermarket "half-price" special offer – these are no doubt true, technically, but the initial price is generally well above what the wine is actually worth.”
“His only bugbear is likely to be the US policy regarding Israel's and the West's brutal sixty year oppression of the Palestinians – the absolute root cause of all Middle-East terrorism from 9/11 to Iran.”
“My other bugbear is that nobody who knows anything about Renaissance art refers to the guy as Da Vinci.”
Dan Brown: How Does He Do It? - by Joanna Penn | The Creative Penn
“My personal bugbear is the misspelling of lose/loose. on March 21, 2009 at 11: 06 pm | Reply anonymous”
“My reading bugbear is the use of second person – it turns me off very quickly even when the author has a good justification for using it.”
“It’s twice as powerful as my old one but one bugbear is that the bowl has no handle, what’s up with that??”
“Naturally, the bugbear is the whole 'writing for free' thing and whether I should sling my copyrighted content to a successful news organisation and receive exactly nothing in return.”
“Another bugbear is the closed, ivory tower nature of the process.”
“But the bugbear was her size, and it was close; it knew exactly how to terrify her.”
Dragon on a Pedestal
“The bugbear was the fixing agent or hypo., which not only left indelible marks, but, despite any amount of washing, the image on a finished plate vanished to nothing at the end of an hour's exposure in the show window.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘bugbear’.
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Mythical Beings
mermaid, manticore, fairy, brownie, dwarf, elf, leprechaun, selkie, gremlin, puck, pixie, genie and 97 more...
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Gapeseeds and Muckworms - Compound Derogatives
A list of compound derogatory names such as gapeseed, muckworm and lickspittle. Your one-word contributions to this list are welcome.
See sionnach's list derogatory terms I should use ...gapeseed, muckworm, lickspittle, makeweight, bootlicker, backscratcher, apple-polisher, backslapper, brownnoser, rakeshame, yesman, freeloader and 237 more...
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Found My Bearings
A list of bear words, mostly real tending fair to fanciful after midday.
grizzly, honey, gummi, teddy, ursidae, polar, caniform, giant panda, dwarf panda, spectacled, short-faced, kodiak and 61 more...
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Mythological Beastiary
abada, therianthropy, ba, bahamut, balaur, banshee, behemoth, bendigeidfran, bluecap, centaur, bugbear, Ceryneian Hind and 14 more...
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It's All Just Words.
quixotic, penisaurus rex, plibt, pot, polaroid, gemütlichkeit, hey! pooper scoop..., nowhere, anywhere, somewhere, elsewhere, wherever and 80 more...
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Fearlobes
EEK! Emotion words and words associated with fear. Let's avoid -phobia words.
terrified, threatened, paralyzed, afraid, tormented, frightened, scared, blench, worried, cowardly, fretful, menaced and 57 more...
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Be Afraid
Scary and scared words
ascared, ugsome, qualm, trepidity, disquietude, scaremonger, scaredy pants, bugbear, scarify, jimjams, petrified, afeared and 11 more...
sonofgroucho Odd word, this one... Nov 24, 2007