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Pronunciation varies by accent · noun
(historical) A nocturnal monster in Ancient Greece that would choke its victims; incubus; nightmare..
Because the Greeks considered being choked or strangled to be one consequence of a night-mare attack, the entity was also called pnigalion (“throttler”).
Their guest list of night-time intruders includes: […] the Greek ephialtes ( one who leaps upon ) , mora ( the night 'mare' or monster), pnigalion ( the choker ) and barychnas (the heavy breather); […]
Greeks had the pnigalion (the choker) and the barychnas (the heavy breather) troubling the sleepers (Keissling, 1977).
Incubus (synonyms, Pnigalion, ephialtes, epibole ) .— It is an elementary form of epilepsy .
Themison names it pnigalion, from the Greek word for suffocating.
It was not merely unconsciousness, it was as if the mind were being smothered by some malign force, a pnigalion, throttling restfulness into a state of paralysis.
Use pnigalion when its meaning, tone and grammar fit the full sentence. A synonym is not always a direct replacement.
Pnigalion means (historical) A nocturnal monster in Ancient Greece that would choke its victims; incubus; nightmare..
The closest synonym depends on the sentence and intended sense.
The opposite depends on the specific sense.
Because the Greeks considered being choked or strangled to be one consequence of a night-mare attack, the entity was also called pnigalion (“throttler”).
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