incubus

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See also: Incubus

English

WOTD – 27 May 2010
Johann Heinrich Füssli, The Nightmare, 1790-1791 portrait of an incubus.

Etymology

From Late Latin incubus, from Latin incubō (“nightmare, one who lies down on the sleeper”), from incubō (“to lie upon, to hatch”, from in- (“on”) +‎ cubō (“to lie down”)).

Pronunciation

Noun

incubus (plural incubi or incubuses)

  1. (mediaeval folklore) An evil spirit supposed to oppress people while asleep, especially to have sex with women as they sleep.
    Coordinate term: succubus
    Hypernyms: evil spirit, spirit
  2. A feeling of oppression during sleep, sleep paralysis; night terrors, a nightmare.
    Synonym: nightmare
  3. (by extension) Any oppressive thing or person; a burden.
    • August 1935, Clark Ashton Smith, Weird Tales, "The Treader of the Dust":
      Again he felt the impulse of flight: but his body was a dry dead incubus that refused to obey his volition.
    • 1949 March and April, F. G. Roe, “I Saw Three Englands–2”, in Railway Magazine, page 82:
      Ahead of us the lowering smoke-screen of Leeds and her gloomy satellites hung like an incubus over the land.
    • 2002, Colin Jones, The Great Nation, Penguin, published 2003, pages 132–3:
      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.
  4. (entomology) One of various of parasitic insects, especially subfamily Aphidiinae.

Translations

See also

Further reading

Dutch

Etymology

From Late Latin incubus, from Latin incubo (“nightmare, one who lies down on the sleeper”), from incubare (“to lie upon, to hatch”).

Noun

incubus m (plural incubussen or incubi, diminutive incubusje n)

  1. an incubus (evil spirit)
  2. a nightmare (horrible dream)
  3. a burden, obsession, yoke

Synonyms

See also

Latin

Etymology

From incubō¹ (“I lie upon”, “I brood over”, “I am a burden to”), perhaps via an alteration of the Classical incubō² (“incubus”, “nightmare”).

Pronunciation

Noun

incubus m (genitive incubī); second declension

  1. (Late Latin) the nightmare, incubus
    (Can we find and add a quotation of Augustine of Hippo to this entry?)
    (Can we find and add a quotation of Isidore of Seville to this entry?)

Declension

Second-declension noun.

Case Singular Plural
Nominative incubus incubī
Genitive incubī incubōrum
Dative incubō incubīs
Accusative incubum incubōs
Ablative incubō incubīs
Vocative incube incubī

Synonyms

Descendants

References

  • “incŭbus”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  • INCUBI in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
  • incŭbus in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette, page 801/1.
  • Niermeyer, Jan Frederik (1976) “incubo (genet. -onis), incubus”, in Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden, Boston: E. J. Brill, page 524/2
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