ephialtes
obsolete
ephialtes is a noun meaning “an incubus; a nightmare” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled E-P-H-I-A-L-T-E-S, and it appears about once in every 26 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data).
What does ephialtes mean?
noun
- 1
obsoletean incubus; a nightmare
Those that were asleep it [a spirit] terrified with horrible visions; those that were waking it would strike, pull, or press, lying heavy upon them like an Ephialtes: so that there were perpetuall complaints every morning of their last nigh
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is ephialtes?
Ephialtes appears about once in every 26 million words in written English, the 155,937th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Where does ephialtes come from?
From Ancient Greek Ἐφιάλτης (Ephiáltēs).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).