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Bugbear   Listen
Bugbear

noun
1.
An imaginary monster used to frighten children.  Synonyms: bogeyman, booger, boogeyman, bugaboo.
2.
An object of dread or apprehension.  Synonym: hobgoblin.  "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Bugbear" Quotes from Famous Books



... expenses ruinous. You will have to spend from twelve to fifteen thousand francs merely to win the suit,—but you will win it, if you care to. The suit will only increase the enmity of the Gravelots, for the expenses will be even heavier on them. You will be their bugbear; you will be called litigious and calumniated in every ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac

... sentence he wrote A Hymn to the Pillory. This was bought and read and shouted in the ears of his enemies by thousands of the people. It was a more daring satire than even The Shortest Way. In the end of it Defoe calls upon the Pillory, "Thou Bugbear of the Law," to speak and ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall

... spread rapidly throughout the district. In cases of genuine need he could be extremely kind and generous; but he did not lavish these qualities on the first comer, nor did he wear his heart upon his sleeve. His informal ways and unconventional dress were a bugbear to some critics; his old waywardness and love of adventure was still alive in him, and he thoroughly enjoyed the more irregular sides of his work. Mr. Bosworth Smith has preserved some capital stories of the crimes with ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore

... home, and in her person, she was little less elegant than a countess; yet nothing more than a merchant-captain's wife; and she reared that commander's children in a suburban villa, with the manners which adorn a palace. When they happen to be there. She had a bugbear; Slang. Could not endure the smart technicalities current; their multitude did not overpower her distaste; she called them "jargon"—"slang" was too coarse a word for her to apply to slang: she excluded many a good "racy idiom" ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade

... she grew older, had much time to spend outdoors, there were many tasks about the house and farm she had to perform. The chest was soon filled with quilts and that bugbear was gone from her life. But there was continual scrubbing, baking, mending, and other household tasks to be done, so that much practice caused the girl to develop into a capable little housekeeper. Aunt Maria frankly ...
— Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers

... promise; her mother would expect it, because she had always thought of it as a thing understood; her father would expect it, because Pete's prosperity had given him a new view of Pete's piety and pedigree; and Nancy Joe would expect it, too, if only because she was still haunted by her old bugbear, the dark shadow of Ross Christian. There was only one way to break down these expectations, and that was to speak out. But how was a girl to speak? What ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine

... come out,—I haven't the heart or the courage to make it myself. I must throw myself on your charity. For Heaven's sake, tell the story as kindly as you can. Don't let her think too harshly of me. See to it, I pray, that my name don't become a bugbear in the village. I have pretty broad shoulders, and could bear it, if I only were to be sufferer; but I am sure 't would react fearfully on the sensibilities of poor Adele. That sin is past cure and past preachment; no good can come from trumpeting wrath against it. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various

... latter days Tom Staple was not a happy man; university reform had long been his bugbear, and now was his bane. It was not with him, as with most others, an affair of politics, respecting which, when the need existed, he could, for parties' sake or on behalf of principle, maintain a certain amount of necessary zeal; it was not ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope

... admirers of the Locofoco school of politics, everywhere seek to frighten native Protestant citizens with the bugbear cry of religious proscription. But let Americans and Protestants watch with increased vigilance both the Roman and Locofoco Jesuits around them. To call the damnable and accursed system of political ...
— Americanism Contrasted with Foreignism, Romanism, and Bogus Democracy in the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture; • William Gannaway Brownlow

... House. The Whigs were reminded that those same soldiers had taken the mace from the table of the House of Commons. From such evils, it was said, no country could be secure which was cursed with a standing army. And what were the advantages which could be set off against such evils? Invasion was the bugbear with which the Court tried to frighten the nation. But we were not children to be scared by nursery tales. We were at peace; and, even in time of war, an enemy who should attempt to invade us would probably be intercepted by our fleet, and would assuredly, if he reached our ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... was exceedingly difficult, and because he knew the ground far better than any other man on earth. He was entitled to very high credit. He got it. He became the idol of the German populace, and the bugbear of the Allied countries. But he has done nothing since. Soon after Tannenberg he made a fool of himself on the Russian frontier, and showed that success had got into his head. He subsequently initiated several terrific attempts, ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various

... I have been thrust out of active life and forced to make up my mind to perfect passiveness, I have become a bugbear to myself. I cannot endure the thought of ever being the peevish egotist, the exacting tyrant, which men are apt to become when they are thrown upon woman's love ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various

... history of this matter in detail, I think it ought now to be manifest to everyone who studies it, that up to the commencement of the present century the progress of science in general, and of natural history in particular, was seriously retarded by what may be termed the Bugbear of Speculation. Fully awakened to the dangers of web-spinning from the ever-fertile resources of their own inner consciousness, naturalists became more and more abandoned to the idea that their science ...
— Darwin, and After Darwin (Vol. 1 and 3, of 3) • George John Romanes

... erect the temple of love, and consecrate myself as its priestess! No, speak no more of revolutions and conspiracies. I am not made to sit upon a throne as the feared and thundering goddess of cowardly slaves, causing millions to tremble at every word and glance! I will not be empress, not the bugbear of a quaking, kneeling people, I will be a woman, who has nothing to do with the business and drudgery of men; I will not be plagued with labor and care, but will enjoy ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach

... absolute or limited by some certain terms of agreement. The dependence of these Colonies, which Great Britain calls constitutional, as declared by acts of Parliament, is absolute. If the contrary of this be the bugbear so many have been disclaiming against, I could wish my countrymen would consider the consequence of so stupid a profession. If a limited dependence is intended, I would be much obliged to any one who will show me the Britannico- ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, vol. III. • Samuel Adams

... cases. The digestion is poor and slow and constipation accompanies it. Sometimes there is neuralgia of the stomach. The sexual organs are seemingly affected, many men are "almost scared to death" and they use all sorts of quack remedies to restore their sexual vigor. Spermatorrhea is their bugbear. They usually get well if they stop worrying. In women there is the tender ovary and the menstruation may be painful or irregular. The condition of the urine in these patients is important. Many cases are complicated with lithaemia (sand-stone ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter

... so?" he cried; but Panoria, not having before her eyes the fear of the Bonapartes' bugbear, "their uncle the canon," ...
— The Boy Life of Napoleon - Afterwards Emperor Of The French • Eugenie Foa

... no military power outside her own bounds, either by land or sea; and England looked with scorn on the threats of a state which possessed neither army nor fleet. "America," Lord Sidmouth wrote at this time, "is a bugbear: there is no terror in her threats!" Canning indeed saw in the embargo only a carrying out of his policy by the very machinery of the American Government. The commerce of America ceased to exist. Her seamen were driven to seek employment ...
— History of the English People, Volume VIII (of 8) - Modern England, 1760-1815 • John Richard Green

... to make inquiries about army nurses—what they ought to do, how they ought to do it, and all that—she ran up against that terrible bugbear of control. Everywhere was control, control, control; and she really began to despair. There were examinations, and training, and applications to the surgeon-general, and to the assistant surgeon, and to special ...
— John Gayther's Garden and the Stories Told Therein • Frank R. Stockton

... all this to Lord Etherington?" said Mowbray; "wait until he propose such a terrible bugbear as matrimony, before you refuse to receive him. Who knows, the whim that he hinted at may have passed away—he was, as you say, flirting with Lady Binks, and her ladyship has a good deal of address, as well ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott

... behaved—these men of her imagination! What matter? She loved adventures! And moving like a king among the rest, she saw the thin, travel-beaten, eccentric form of Lord Philip—the hated, adored, pursued; Society's idol and bugbear all in one; Lord Philip, who shunned and disliked women; on whom, nevertheless, the ambitions and desires of some of the loveliest women in England were, on that account alone, and at this moment of ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... had that long hold on the national imagination in England, either as an idol or a bugbear, which is essential to keep the poet who sings it in effective harmony with new generations of readers. More than this, the Byronic conception was as transitional and inadequate as the methods and ideas of the practical ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. I - Essay 3: Byron • John Morley

... white meats of all sorts are quite as rich in those elements known as the purin bodies, or uric-acid group, as red meats, and many of them much richer. It may be said in passing, that this last-mentioned bugbear of our diet-reformers is now believed to have nothing whatever to do with rheumatism, and probably very little with gout, and that the ravings of Haig and the Uric-Acid School generally are now thoroughly discredited. Certainly, ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson

... boys took their turn and gave their visitors a radio concert that was wonderful in its variety and beauty. The night happened to be unusually free of the annoying static that is the bugbear of the wireless, and every note of the music was as clear and sweet as though the performers were only a few yards away. Tim and Larry listened as though they were entranced, and when the concert was finished they were as enthusiastic "fans" ...
— The Radio Boys at the Sending Station - Making Good in the Wireless Room • Allen Chapman

... they become insensible to the nicer feelings. The grossest enormities are constantly committed in this good republic of ours, under the pretence of being done by the public, and for the public. The public have got to bow to that bugbear, quite as submissively as Gesler would have wished the Swiss to bow to his own cap, as to the cap of Rodolph's substitute. Men will have idols, and the Americans have merely ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper

... Russia was the bugbear of two generations of Englishmen; and classical scholars, who interpreted modern politics by the light of ancient Greece, saw in the absorption of Athens by Macedon a convincing demonstration of the fate which the modern barbarian of ...
— The History of England - A Study in Political Evolution • A. F. Pollard

... of Drake Was a Bugbear to fright Children; Nurses still'd Their little Spanish Nynnyes when they cryde "Hush! the ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various

... trust to,—when he has neither sense nor genius, he puts on a wig, ties up his neck in a white choker, sits in a big chair, and frightens the world with his silence. Remember, if you were not a baby, he would not be a bugbear." ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope

... me tell him once for all, through you, that I will come into and go out of this place as often as I like, so long as he keeps Nell here; and that if he wants to be quit of me, he must first be quit of her. What have I done to be made a bugbear of, and to be shunned and dreaded as if I brought the plague? He'll tell you that I have no natural affection; and that I care no more for Nell, for her own sake, than I do for him. Let him say so. I care for the whim, then, of coming to and fro and reminding her of my existence. I WILL see her ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens

... water is a worry! And doubtless, if the iron glove Should meet us here in Kent or Surrey, Its clasp might soften into love; We might despatch him with a grey grin, And all the German Scribes would vow "Our bugbear is the Montenegrin; We do not hate the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 18, 1914 • Various

... apple-brandy, might march on to the capital, take it by storm, and annex the whole province to Connecticut. The name of Yankee became as terrible among the Nieuw Nederlanders as was that of Gaul among the ancient Romans, insomuch that the good wives of the Manhattoes used it as a bugbear wherewith ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving

... Three Degree Depot. The tracks seem as good as ever so far, sometimes for 30 or 40 yards we lose them under drifts, but then they reappear quite clearly raised above the surface. If the light is good there is not the least difficulty in following. Blizzards are our bugbear, not only stopping our marches, but the cold damp air takes it out of us. Bowers got another rating sight to-night—it was wonderful how he managed to observe in such a horribly cold wind. He has been on ski to-day whilst Wilson walked by the sledge ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott

... monks, seeing him flee, marvelled and questioned him of the cause, which he told them; whereupon quoth the abbot, 'Marry, thou art no child nor art thou new to the church that thou shouldst thus lightly take fright; let us go see who hath played the bugbear with thee.' Accordingly, kindling several lights, the abbot and all his monks entered the church and saw that wonder-rich and goodly bed and thereon the gentleman asleep; and what while, misdoubting and fearful, ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio

... fancies" [Macbeth]; creation of the brain, coinage of the brain; imagery. conceit, maggot, figment, myth, dream, vision, shadow, chimera; phantasm, phantasy; fantasy, fancy; whim, whimsey[obs3], whimsy; vagary, rhapsody, romance, gest[obs3], geste[obs3], extravaganza; air drawn dagger, bugbear, nightmare. flying Dutchman, great sea serpent, man in the moon, castle in the air, pipe dream, pie-in-the-sky, chateau en Espagne[Fr]; Utopia, Atlantis[obs3], happy valley, millennium, fairyland; land ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... right direction, and every mile that she now travelled was so much to the good, increasing our chances of getting across the Line and making our escape from the awful region of equatorial calms which constitute such a ghastly bugbear to those who go down to the sea in sailing-ships. Our self-congratulations proved, however, to be premature, for the breeze lasted only about half an hour when it died away again, leaving us as completely becalmed as before. But during that half-hour we had ...
— Overdue - The Story of a Missing Ship • Harry Collingwood

... complications," said his wife, as if resenting the word. "But you make such a bugbear of the least little matter that there's no encouragement to tell ...
— A Fearful Responsibility and Other Stories • William D. Howells

... Bugbear of the law stand up and speak, Thy long misconstru'd silence break, Tell us, who 'tis upon thy ridge stands there, So full of fault, and yet so void of fear; And from the paper in his hat. Let all mankind ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber

... war was pretty general, as far as the criers went. They put on their Sabbath face concerning the declaration of war, and told with approval how the Royal hand had trembled in committing itself to the form of signature to which its action is limited. If there was money to be paid, there was a bugbear to be slain for it; and a bugbear is as obnoxious to the repose of commercial communities as rivals are ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... good of Virginia. It was a bold test! Not only should they covenant to give no aid to the whilom?? Governor against this new general and army, but if ships should bring the Red Coats they were to withstand them. There is little wonder that "this bugbear did marvellously startle" that body of Virginia horsemen, those progressive gentlemen planters, and others. Yet in the end, after violent contentions, the assembly at Middle Plantation drew up and signed a remarkable paper, the "Oath at ...
— Pioneers of the Old South - A Chronicle of English Colonial Beginnings, Volume 5 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Mary Johnston

... 'What a bugbear that woman is!' I observed, rather irritably, as we retraced our steps in the direction of the Man and Plough, the little inn that stood at the junction of the four roads. Everything looked dark and eerie in the faint starlight. Our footsteps seemed to strike sharply ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... the transcendent merits discovered by thousands (or at least proclaimed by them), there is every likelihood of my incurring the contempt of connoisseurs, and of being reproached with want of taste in art. This is the bugbear which scares thousands. For myself, I would rather incur the contempt of connoisseurs than my own; the repreach of defective taste is more endurable than the reproach of insincerity. Suppose I am deficient in the requisite knowledge and sensibility, ...
— The Principles of Success in Literature • George Henry Lewes

... have had the wit to see and the energy to adopt the best feature of the American style; and the result has been a distinct advance in the raciness and readableness of some of our best-known journals. The "Americanisation of the British press" is no bugbear to stand in awe of, if only it be carried on with good sense and discrimination. We can most advantageously exchange lessons of sobriety and restraint for suggestions of candour, humour, and point; and America's share in the form of the ideal ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead

... many from escaping, while they knew not which way to run for safety. Rigby in the nick of time galloped up to this awful and hostile appearance, crying out to his troops that he would soon demolish the bugbear. This saying encouraged some of the runaways, who followed him to the combat. Approaching within a sword's length, for he was not deficient either in hardihood or valour, he made a furious stroke right in the face of this flaming apparition, when down ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby

... his entourage gave themselves a free rein; that old bugbear Mother Goose was resuscitated, and many a child, on reading the newspaper, might have recognized the ogre of Goodman Perrault in the disguise of a socialist; they surmised, they invented; the press being suppressed, it was quite ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo

... fulfiling of use, which, rightly understood, is the universal panacea against all the troubles and sorrows of this life, is too often a fearful bugbear in the eyes of those who understand it not. This subject, however, brings us to the third and last topic to be discussed under the head of Life. The love of duty, to be effectual or real, must be earnest; for earnestness is the certain result of living Affection. Through this, all our other powers ...
— The Elements of Character • Mary G. Chandler

... name of altar, while the officiating minister resumed the name of priest. The people, now become thoroughly Protestantised, murmured, and thought they saw indications of a return to Rome.** Some protested that all this superabundant care for externals was eating the life out of Protestantism; the bugbear of others was the appeal, now becoming customary, to the Fathers of the Church, rather than to the Protestant divines of the continent.*** St. Augustine was suspect, Calvin they ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone

... complete bugbear," he groaned. "It ought to be indicted for a nuisance, waking people up o' mornings when they ought to be in the arms of Morpheus—I've a great mind to lie still. Half an hour's ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May



Words linked to "Bugbear" :   booger, bugaboo, hobgoblin, bogeyman, monster, object, boogeyman



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