Bugbear

A scarecrow. Bug is the Welsh bwg, a hobgoblin, called in Russia buka. Spenser says, “A ghastly bug doth greatly them affear” (book ii. canto 3); and Hamlet has “bugs and goblins” (v. 2).

“Warwick was a bug that feared us all.”

Shakespeare: 3 Henry IV., v. 3.

“To the world no bug bear is so great

As want of figure and a small estate.”

Pope: Satires, iii. 67–68.

⁂ The latter half of this word is somewhat doubtful. The Welsh bár = ire, fury, wrath, whence barog, spiteful, seems probable.

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.

Bugbear

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