Pnigalion
Definition, Meaning & Examples
Part of speech noun
Quick meaning: Pnigalion is a noun meaning (historical) A nocturnal monster in Ancient Greece that would choke its victims; incubus; nightmare.
Meaning
(historical) A nocturnal monster in Ancient Greece that would choke its victims; incubus; nightmare.
More Meanings
- (archaic, medicine) sleep paralysis; nightmare
Example Sentences
Themison names it pnigalion, from the Greek word for suffocating.
Incubus (synonyms, Pnigalion, ephialtes, epibole ) .— It is an elementary form of epilepsy .
Greeks had the pnigalion (the choker) and the barychnas (the heavy breather) troubling the sleepers (Keissling, 1977).
Because the Greeks considered being choked or strangled to be one consequence of a night-mare attack, the entity was also called pnigalion (“throttler”).
Related Words
Related dictionary entries include peripneumonia, polypnoeia, parasomniac, psychoparesis, philomene, phrenopathy.
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Sources & Attribution
FreeDictionaryAPI.com / Wiktionary · Original source · CC BY-SA 4.0
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