# incubus
## English
### Etymology

From Late Latin incubus, from Latin incubō (“nightmare, one who lies down on the sleeper”), from incubō (“to lie upon, to hatch”, from in- (“on”) +‎ cubō (“to lie down”)).

### Pronunciation

* (UK, General American, Canada, General Australian) IPA: /ˈɪŋ.kjʊ.bəs/, /ˈɪn.kjə.bəs/
** Audio (US):(file)
** Audio (Queensland):(file)
* Homophone: incubous

### Noun

incubus (plural incubi or incubuses)
* (mediaeval folklore) An evil spirit supposed to oppress people while asleep, especially to have sex with women as they sleep.
    Coordinate term: succubus
    Hypernyms: evil spirit, spirit
* A feeling of oppression during sleep, sleep paralysis; night terrors, a nightmare.
    Synonym: nightmare
** Burton with W.H. Gass, The Anatomy of Melancholy, NYRB Classics ser. (New York: New York Review Books, 2001, orig. 1932), →ISBN, vol. 1, p. 249:
    it increaseth fearful dreams, incubus, night-walking, crying out, and much unquietness […] .
* (by extension) Any oppressive thing or person; a burden.
** August 1935, Clark Ashton Smith, Weird Tales, "The Treader of the Dust":
    Again he felt the impulse of flight: but his body was a dry dead incubus that refused to obey his volition.
** 1949 March and April, F. G. Roe, “I Saw Three Englands–2”, in Railway Magazine, page 82:Ahead of us the lowering smoke-screen of Leeds and her gloomy satellites hung like an incubus over the land.
** 2002, Colin Jones, The Great Nation, Penguin, published 2003, pages 132–3:Notions of civic virtue were at that moment changing, in ways which would make of Louis's alleged vices an incubus on the back of the monarchy.
* (entomology) One of various of parasitic insects, especially subfamily Aphidiinae.

#### See also

* incubous
* succubus

### Further reading

* incubus on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

## Dutch
### Etymology

From Late Latin incubus, from Latin incubo (“nightmare, one who lies down on the sleeper”), from incubare (“to lie upon, to hatch”).

### Noun

incubus m (plural incubussen or incubi, diminutive incubusje n)
* an incubus (evil spirit)
* a nightmare (horrible dream)
* a burden, obsession, yoke

#### Synonyms

* (nightmare) nachtmerrie

#### See also

* succubus m

## Latin
### Etymology

From incubō¹ (“I lie upon”, “I brood over”, “I am a burden to”), perhaps via an alteration of the Classical incubō² (“incubus”, “nightmare”).

### Pronunciation

* (Classical Latin) IPA: /ˈin.ku.bus/, [ˈɪŋkʊbʊs̠]
* (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA: /ˈin.ku.bus/, [ˈiŋkubus]

### Noun

incubus m (genitive incubī); second declension
* (Late Latin) the nightmare, incubus
    (Can we find and add a quotation of Augustine of Hippo to this entry?)
    (Can we find and add a quotation of Isidore of Seville to this entry?)

#### Declension

Second-declension noun.

#### Synonyms

* (nightmare, incubus): incubitor, incubō

#### Descendants

* Dutch: incubus
* English: incubus
* French: incube
* German: Incubus
* Italian: incubo
* Portuguese: íncubo
* Romanian: incub
* Russian: инку́б (inkúb)
* Spanish: íncubo

### References

* “incŭbus”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
* "INCUBI", in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
* incŭbus in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette, page 801/1.
* Niermeyer, Jan Frederik (1976) “incubo (genet. -onis), incubus”, in Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden, Boston: E. J. Brill, page 524/2