daymare

noun

day·​mare ˈdā-ˌmer 

: a nightmarish fantasy experienced while awake

Did you know?

Long ago, the word nightmare designated an evil spirit that made its victims feel like they were suffocating in their sleep (prompting physician-botanist William Turner to introduce "a good remedy agaynst the stranglyng of the nyght mare" in 1562). By the early 1700s, the Age of Reason had arrived, nightmares were bad dreams, and "daymare" was a logically analogous choice when English speakers sought a word for a frightening and uncontrollable fantasy, a run-away daydream. And since the 1800s, when Charles Dickens wrote "a monstrous load that I was obliged to bear, a daymare that there was no possibility of breaking in, a weight that brooded on my wits" in David Copperfield, we’ve been using "daymare" figuratively. For example, today we might refer to "a logistical daymare."

Examples of daymare in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Like Andy Warhol, who began as a commercial illustrator, Kruger found a rich vein in the consumerist daymare of pop culture, in those glossy pages filled with feminine archetypes used to sell an idea of us to ourselves. —Megan O’Grady, New York Times, 19 Oct. 2020

The idealism of the day takes on a daymare quality. —Kerry Pieri, Harper's BAZAAR, 6 June 2012

Word History

Etymology

day + -mare (as in nightmare)

First Known Use

1737, in the meaning defined above

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Medical Definition

daymare

noun

day·​mare ˈdā-ˌma(ə)r, -ˌme(ə)r 

: a nightmarish fantasy experienced while awake