cauchemar
English
French
Etymology
Inherited from Middle French cauchemare, from Old French cauquemare. By surface analysis, cauque + mar. Compare Walloon tchôcmwår.
- First element from Old French cauche, from the verb chauchier (“to press”), from Latin calcare (“I trample, tread on”), from calx (“heel”), of uncertain origin.
- Second element from Frankish *marā (“evil spirit”), from Proto-West Germanic *marā, from Proto-Germanic *marǭ (“nightmare, incubus”), from Proto-Indo-European *mor- (“malicious female spirit”), from *mer- (“to die”); related to the homograph English mare. More at mare.
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /kɔʃ.maʁ/, /koʃ.maʁ/[1]
Audio (France, Paris) (file) - Homophone: cauchemars
- Hyphenation: cauche‧mar
Noun
cauchemar m (plural cauchemars)
- nightmare
- Antonym: rêve
- Je n’ai pas pu dormir hier soir parce que j’ai fait trop de cauchemars.
- I couldn't sleep last night because I had too many nightmares.
- C’était un rêve ou un cauchemar?
- Was it a dream or a nightmare?
- Il a remué toute la nuit, je crois qu’il a fait des cauchemars.
- He was tossing and turning all night, I think [that] he had nightmares.
- J’ai eu un accident ce matin! Je vais bien mais ça a été un vrai cauchemar!
- I had an accident this morning! I'm okay but it was a true nightmare!
Usage notes
Cauchemar is often used with the transitive verb faire [to do/to make] instead of the verb avoir [to have]. Faire un cauchemar = to have a nightmare.
Derived terms
Derived terms
Descendants
- → Bulgarian: кошмар (košmar)
- → English: cauchemar
- → Esperanto: koŝmaro
- → Estonian: košmaar
- → Ido: koshmaro
- → Lithuanian: košmaras
- → Macedonian: кошмар (košmar)
- → Polish: koszmar
- → Romanian: coșmar
- → Russian: кошмар (košmar), кошма́ръ (košmár)
- → Serbo-Croatian:
- → Ukrainian: кошмар (košmar)
- → Volapük: kojmar
- → Yiddish: קאָשמאַר (koshmar)
References
- “cauchemar”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.
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