Incubus

Quick meaning: Incubus is a noun meaning (mediaeval folklore) An evil spirit supposed to oppress people while asleep, especially to have sex with women as they sleep.

Meaning

(mediaeval folklore) An evil spirit supposed to oppress people while asleep, especially to have sex with women as they sleep.

More Meanings

1. A feeling of oppression during sleep, sleep paralysis; night terrors, a nightmare.
2. (by extension) Any oppressive thing or person; a burden.
3. (entomology) One of various of parasitic insects, especially subfamily Aphidiinae.

Example Sentences

it increaseth fearful dreams, incubus, night-walking, crying out, and much unquietness […] .

Again he felt the impulse of flight: but his body was a dry dead incubus that refused to obey his volition.

Ahead of us the lowering smoke-screen of Leeds and her gloomy satellites hung like an incubus over the land.

Notions of civic virtue were at that moment changing, in ways which would make of Louis's alleged vices an incubus on the back of the monarchy.

Word Forms

• incubi
• incubuses

Synonyms for incubus

Depending on context, synonyms include nightmare.

Related Words

Related dictionary entries include nightmare, ephialtes, lilith, hypnalis, demon, hellspawn.

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