(n.) Something frightful, as a specter; anything imaginary that causes needless fright; something used to excite needless fear; also, something really dangerous, used to frighten children, etc.
(n.) Same as Bugaboo.
(a.) Causing needless fright.
(v. t.) To alarm with idle phantoms.
Example Sentences:
(1) I doubt any of us have a real bugbear with the comedian himself, because bitterness and disappointment is something most of us can relate to on some level.
(2) This is the uncomfortable truth, of course, which, after four decades at the sharp end of the fertility industry, has become Grudzinskas' bugbear.
(3) One dev says: "My biggest bugbear at the moment (on my lowly 3GS) is the number of times app quit due to memory shortages, or because they've taken too long to load.
(4) Her serve has been her bugbear since her shoulder operation six years ago, and it is a mark of her grit that she has triumphed despite it.
(5) Gay ubiquity began to make it seem difficult for homophobes to travel anywhere interesting without encountering their bugbear.
(6) One of the bugbears among locals who hoped the Ridings would remain open is the fact that, in last week's secondary school league tables, it did considerably better than it has in the past: the number of pupils scoring five A*-C grades at GCSE in subjects including maths and English was up from 4% to 13%.
(7) Letting agents' fees are a bugbear of all the tenant campaign groups.
(8) That it was more than just a personal bugbear became clear in June 2013, when we learned that PennCAN, yet another so-called “school-reform” group focused on vouchers, privatization, and the destruction of public schooling, had financed a “secret poll” that encouraged Corbett to attack the PFT in hopes of gaining support ahead of his midterm reelection campaign.
(9) The EHRC has long been a bugbear for the Tory right who see it as a relic of the past.
(10) Painfully slow mobile internet connections have long been a bugbear for smartphone owners made to wait while trying to load a simple map or webpage.
(11) I haven’t got any problems with people at the FA, but that’s one of my bugbears.” Coulthard checks the walls of her house for a clue as to when England first played at Wembley.
(12) That's what politicians should be asking us to envisage when they set upon this bugbear with their big sticks: people on very low incomes earning a very small amount extra and not declaring it.
(13) The policy has helped to shape the landscape of diversity within higher education for 35 years, and has become an growing bugbear of the conservative right that sees it as a form of discrimination against white students.
(14) But the new performance management system, which is in its third year, is the major bugbear for most staff.
(15) After a pledge to pull the Tory party out of the main centre-right grouping in Brussels after the 2009 European elections backfired, Mr Cameron has largely ignored the issue of Europe - a bugbear for past Tory leaders from Margaret Thatcher onwards.
(16) The MPC appeared to have become more confident about the outlook for productivity, which has remained a bugbear of Britain’s post-crisis recovery.
(17) Much of the book is given over to how he got into campaigning for stem cell research, the hope of many Parkinson's sufferers and bugbear of the Christian right, which sees it as a moral equivalent to abortion.
(18) Among the biggest bugbears revealed in the consultation document – the draft ppdate guidance on green claims - are general, untestable claims like products being "eco-" or "environmentally friendly".
(19) Wendi not only has no voting position in the family trust (nor do her two children) and is quite a bugbear to the people who do, but she also hasn't had a job in almost 15 years.
(20) A chief bugbear of Van Gaal before this game had been that United needed to turn in a display for the full 90 minutes.
Hobgoblin
Definition:
(n.) A frightful goblin; an imp; a bugaboo; also, a name formerly given to the household spirit, Robin Goodfellow.
Example Sentences:
(1) Next month the Labour party will do likewise, chanting against the hardy hobgoblins of banking, tax-dodging and Toryism.
(2) I'm taking a break from screenwriting right now, although I'm developing a TV project with my wife for HBO, a second world war spy series called Hobgoblins , about a bunch of magicians and con-artists who are hired by British intelligence to perpetrate cons and scams against the Germans.
(3) Pro-Europeans, who can see the benefits of EU membership without dreaming up federalist hobgoblins, do not think such constitutional protection necessary.