bugbear

noun

1. An ongoing problem; a recurring obstacle or adversity.

   “Stone ballast is now used throughout the main line, and has the additional advantage of eliminating the previous bugbear of dust.”

   “Level crossings are the bugbear of railway operation at Hull. There are no fewer than 16 within the city boundary.”

   “Next, they operate in constrained worlds. Apple is a particular bugbear for Mr Zuckerberg and Mr Sweeney.”

2. A source of dread; resentment; or irritation.

   “What has this Bugbear Death to frighten Man, If Souls can die, as well as Bodies can?”

   “But, to the world no bugbear is so great As want of figure and a small estate.”

   “What have I done to be made a bugbear of, and to be shunned and dreaded as if I brought the plague?”

3. A generic creature, often described as a large goblin, meant to inspire fear in children.

   “Ha, ha: alas poore wretch: a poore Chipochia, haſt not ſlept to night? would he not (a naughty man) let it ſleepe: a bug-beare take him.”

   ““How could you lie so glaringly as to affirm I hated the ‘poor child’? and invent bugbear stories to terrify her from my door-stones?[…]””

   “"My young friends," quietly replied Jason, "I do not wonder that you think the dragon very terrible. You have grown up from infancy in the fear of this monster, and therefore still regard him with the awe that children feel for the bugbears and hobgoblins which their nurses have talked to them about.[…]"”

   “The partisans of the Administration object to the word “imperialism,” calling it a mere bugbear having no real existence.”

verb

1. (transitive)To alarm with idle phantoms.