nightmarish
Americanadjective
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of nightmarish
Explanation
Something nightmarish is truly horrifying, something that would show up in a bad dream. Your nightmarish day might start with a car accident on the way to school and end with a fight with your best friend. A chilling scream in the middle of the night is nightmarish, and traumatic experiences like an episode of bullying or nearly stumbling off the top of a cliff would also be nightmarish. You can also use this adjective to emphasize the unpleasantness of an experience in a slightly exaggerated way: "Ugh, that math test was absolutely nightmarish." Nightmarish things resemble nightmares, or terrifying dreams.
Vocabulary lists containing nightmarish
Rowan of Rin
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Novel Study: Their Eyes Were Watching God, Chapters 12–20
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile are having a nightmarish end to the week, but it could be a chance to buy their beaten-down shares.
From Barron's ● Oct. 9, 2026
At around age 19 or 20, he began having regular night terrors and daily flashbacks to “horrific, nightmarish things.”
From Slate ● Sep. 22, 2026
To them, in this moment, this Premier Sports Cup quarter-final must have felt like a surreal and nightmarish occasion - and it was only 1-0 at the time.
From BBC ● Sep. 13, 2026
Maddie and Avery moved back from New York to help out as their mother tried to keep Little Flower going while dealing with dislocation and a nightmarish battle with her insurance company.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 1, 2026
So, when I left for the train station, I was glad I had made the nightmarish trip to Soweto.
From "Kaffir Boy: An Autobiography" by Mark Mathabane
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Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
