night terror

Definition of night terror

: a sudden awakening in dazed terror that occurs in children during slow-wave sleep, is often preceded by a sudden shrill cry uttered in sleep, and is not remembered when the child awakes —usually used in plural

Examples of night terror in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web Typically, kids who experience night terrors don’t remember the episodes at all. — Christina Couch, New York Times, "How to Make Night Terrors Less Terrifying," 17 Apr. 2020 Anyone who takes small children to this movie is setting them up for winged-monkey levels of night terrors. — Brittany Shammas, Washington Post, "‘The biggest disaster of the decade’: A roundup of the most memorable ‘Cats’ reviews," 20 Dec. 2019 Others know to interrupt their owners during a night terror. — Jason Haag, WSJ, "Phony Service Dogs Hurt Veterans," 26 Jan. 2020 Movie classics from fuzzy feel-goods like A Cinderella Story to night terrors like Pan's Labyrinth will also soon hit the platform. — Chelsey Sanchez, Harper's BAZAAR, "Here’s Everything Coming to Netflix in January," 11 Dec. 2019 The doctors did not support adding night terrors to the list of conditions. — Amanda Blanco, courant.com, "Patients with chronic pain should be able to use medical marijuana, state board of physicians says," 27 Sep. 2019 For example, before receiving palliative interventions, Mom had started suffering from terrible night terrors, which necessitated our decision to bring her home. — Wesley J. Smith, National Review, "Congress Should Pass the Palliative Care and Hospice Education and Training Act," 27 Sep. 2019 Leaving aside whether or not certain homicidal traits can be passed along genetically, Malcolm suffers from night terrors, a hand tremor and several other ailments tied to learning the truth about his dad at a formative age. — Daniel Fienberg, The Hollywood Reporter, "'Prodigal Son': TV Review," 23 Sep. 2019 The 60-year-old, who declined to give her name, planned to sleep in her granddaughter’s bedroom that night to comfort her should any night terrors arise. — Alice Yin, chicagotribune.com, "Shooting wounds 4 in Marquette Park, leaving neighbors to fear ‘this is not the end of it'," 10 Aug. 2019

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'night terror.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

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Cite this Entry

“Night terror.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/night%20terror. Accessed 1 Oct. 2020.

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