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nightmarish

American  
[nahyt-mair-ish] / ˈnaɪtˌmɛər ɪʃ /

adjective

  1. resembling a nightmare, especially in being terrifying, exasperating, or the like.

    his nightmarish experience in a concentration camp.

Other Word Forms

  • nightmarishly adverb
  • nightmarishness noun

Etymology

Origin of nightmarish

First recorded in 1825–35; nightmare + -ish 1

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.

The 31‑year‑old admitted she had begun having strange, nightmarish dreams ahead of her big moment at London Fashion Week on Sunday.

From Barron's

Still, it hasn’t been a completely nightmarish trip across the Atlantic.

From The Wall Street Journal

They crawled and rested, crawled and rested, in a nightmarish pattern that repeated itself over and over again.

From Literature

It also extended a nightmarish stretch of Olympic finishes in Shiffrin’s otherwise outstanding career.

From The Wall Street Journal

The master had said it in so many words—my reward for whatever awaited me in this nightmarish new world into which I had enlisted.

From Literature

Definitions 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.