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Recent Examples of incubus
The Devil’s Museum, a satellite of the main collection, has amassed more than 3,000 depictions of demons, evil spirits and incubus from around the world.
—
Joe Yogerst, Forbes.com, 22 Apr. 2025
Your fame sits beside you like an incubus, and people are embarrassed and want to leave the room.
—Candace Bushnell, Vogue, 23 Feb. 2025
This meaning is visualized in Henry Fuseli’s 1781 painting The Nightmare, which shows a woman sleeping peacefully on a couch while a nauseating monster—an incubus—sits portentously on her abdomen, unbeknownst to her.
—Time, 28 Dec. 2022
As Tommy’s experiences in the tunnels of France mark a continued incubus for his character, with visions of being pulled into the mud, the sounding of the bell coincides with his own inner peace.
—Josh St. Clair, Men's Health, 13 June 2022
An incubus is the male variety (and also that band).
—Angie Jones, Glamour, 17 Mar. 2022
Joe Yogerst, Forbes.com, 22 Apr. 2025
Your fame sits beside you like an incubus, and people are embarrassed and want to leave the room.
—Candace Bushnell, Vogue, 23 Feb. 2025
This meaning is visualized in Henry Fuseli’s 1781 painting The Nightmare, which shows a woman sleeping peacefully on a couch while a nauseating monster—an incubus—sits portentously on her abdomen, unbeknownst to her.
—Time, 28 Dec. 2022
As Tommy’s experiences in the tunnels of France mark a continued incubus for his character, with visions of being pulled into the mud, the sounding of the bell coincides with his own inner peace.
—Josh St. Clair, Men's Health, 13 June 2022
An incubus is the male variety (and also that band).
—Angie Jones, Glamour, 17 Mar. 2022
Recent Examples of Synonyms for incubus
Noun
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It was emptied of us and, therefore, full of dunes and demons, bogs and bleeding trees.—
Devon Walker-Figueroa,
The New York Review of Books,
3 July 2025
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Things become messy when a popular rival boy band – The Saja Boys – are revealed to be demons.—
Laura Sirikul,
Forbes.com,
30 June 2025
Noun
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Aeacus, a judge of the dead, and Thanatos, winged daemon of death, are chthonic.—
Lewis Hyde,
Harpers Magazine,
18 June 2025
-
The Rose Field begins where the second book, The Secret Commonwealth leaves off: Lyra alone in a city full of daemons, or physical projections of a person's soul, looking for Pantalaimon as her mentor, Malcolm Polstead, searches for her.—
Rachel Raposas,
People.com,
29 Apr. 2025
Noun
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In each episode, a young girl traveling with her musician mother encounters mysterious entities, including sirens, banshees, werewolves and more.—
Keith Langston,
People.com,
6 July 2025
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But just before all the banshee wailing threatens to overwhelm proceedings, along comes a hypnotic tribal beat which briefly turns the wake into a party.—
Jon O'Brien,
Vulture,
13 May 2025
Noun
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Brown and Kountz play Luna and Marvin, a couple who moves to Evergreen Lane with a passion for goblins and ghouls that inspires the whole neighborhood to go all in.—
Elizabeth Fogarty,
Better Homes & Gardens,
23 June 2025
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While the cars are moving in two dimensions to the fighter jets’ three, Kosinski makes the races feel truly physical—not just on the turns and straights, but in the frenetic pit stops and in the viewing suites stuffed with sheikhs and tech ghouls.—
Paul A. Thompson,
Pitchfork,
20 June 2025
Noun
-
Joy Behar's militia of terroristic digital devices, aural phantoms followedThe View moderator back to her post and wasted no time making their presence known at the top of Monday's episode.—
EW.com,
EW.com,
7 July 2025
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Rubin hopes to tally these same sorts of deep-space particles, the kind that all of Earth is constantly microdosing, phantom starlight from the farthest reaches of the universe.—
Michael Jones McKean,
The Atlantic,
23 June 2025
Noun
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This is a pen that is both weighty and lighthearted – fitting for the home of Bilbo and Frodo Baggins, whose life of bonhomie and good cheer was disrupted by adventure and dragons and ring wraiths and war.—
Erik Kain,
Forbes.com,
12 June 2025
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The First Shadow was an effect as magical as the telekinetic wraiths emanating above the actors’ bodies.—
Taylor Antrim,
Vogue,
30 Apr. 2025
Noun
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The mushroom’s healing properties also lead to hallucinations, often involving mysterious white imps, who should be adorable and instead come across as menacing little ghouls.—
Alan Sepinwall,
Rolling Stone,
18 June 2025
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And Dot — well, Dot keeps an imp in an old wine bottle.—
Sara Holdren,
Vulture,
17 Apr. 2025
Noun
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Musk, a top White House adviser, has become a bogeyman for the administration as critics blame him for the efforts to cut federal workers and dismantle agencies.—
Alex Gangitano,
The Hill,
21 Mar. 2025
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But South dismissed the possibility of Democrats’ identity and messaging problems after last year’s election being exacerbated by Musk’s departure and his absence as a bogeyman.—
Naomi Lim,
The Washington Examiner,
1 June 2025
Cite this Entry
“Incubus.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/incubus. Accessed 21 Jul. 2025.
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