Lexic.us

Definition of Incubus

1. Noun. A male demon believed to lie on sleeping persons and to have sexual intercourse with sleeping women.

2. Noun. A situation resembling a terrifying dream.

3. Noun. Someone who depresses or worries others.

Definition of Incubus

1. n. A demon; a fiend; a lascivious spirit, supposed to have sexual intercourse with women by night.

Definition of Incubus

1. Noun. An evil spirit supposed to oppress people while asleep, especially to have sex with women as they sleep. ¹

2. Noun. A feeling of oppression during sleep, sleep paralysis; night terrors, a nightmare. ¹

3. Noun. Any oppressive thing or person; a burden. ¹

4. Noun. One of a genus of parasitic insects. ¹

¹ Source: wiktionary.com

Definition of Incubus

1. a demon [n -BI or -BUSES] - See also: demon

Medical Definition of Incubus

1. Origin: L, the nightmare. Cf. Incubate. 1. A demon; a fiend; a lascivious spirit, supposed to have sexual intercourse with women by night. "The devils who appeared in the female form were generally called succubi; those who appeared like men incubi, though this distinction was not always preserved." (Lecky) 2. The nightmare. See Nightmare. "Such as are troubled with incubus, or witch-ridden, as we call it." (Burton) 3. Any oppressive encumbrance or burden; anything that prevents the free use of the faculties. "Debt and usury is the incubus which weighs most heavily on the agricultural resources of Turkey." (J. L. Farley) Source: Websters Dictionary (01 Mar 1998)

Lexicographical Neighbors of Incubus

incubates incubating incubation incubation period incubation time incubations incubative incubative stage incubator incubators

incubatory incubatory carrier incubi incubiture incubous incubuses incudal incudal fold incudal fossa incudate

incudectomy incudes incudiform incudiform uterus incudomalleal incudomalleolar articulation incudomalleolar joint incudostapedial incudostapedial articulation

Literary usage of Incubus

Below you will find example usage of this term as found in modern and/or classical literature:

1. A Guide to the Best Fiction in English by William Winter, George Saintsbury, Ernest Albert Baker (1913)
""THE incubus." During the season of 1908-'09 Laurence Irving, accompanied by his ... "The incubus" afforded one more illustration of a widely prevalent and ..."

2. The Wallet of Time: Containing Personal, Biographical, and Critical by William Winter (1913)
""The incubus" afforded one more illustration of a widely prevalent and deplorable tendency, in contemporary dramatic writing, toward analysis of morbid ..."

3. A Philosophical Dictionary by Voltaire (1843)
"incubus. HAVE there ever been incubi and suc- cubi ? Our learned jurisconsults and de- monologists admit both the one and the other. ..."

4. What to observe at the bed-side and after death in medical cases by London Medical Society of Observation (1853)
"... when out of health; their character, terrific, fatiguing, distressing, etc.—incubus: position in which it occurs; at what period after falling asleep ? ..."

5. History of English Poetry from the Twelfth to the Close of the Sixteenth Century by Thomas Warton, William Carew Hazlitt, Richard Price (1871)
"... incubus in a clothe of grene," the well-known elfin livery ; and Montgomery confers upon the ... with the Elfe Queene, With many elrich incubus was ..."

6. History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850 by James Ford Rhodes (1906)
"... President as the " incubus " they had let the conditions of the game be tacitly understood. They virtually said to him : You hamper us in our policy, ..."

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