1552 R. King Funerall Serm. sig. F.iiii^v Momishe mopers whiche can do none other thyng else, but mope vppon ther bookes, to make vs afraied of shadowes and buggeberes.

c1580 tr. Bugbears i. i, in Archiv f. das Studium der Neueren Sprachen (1897) 98 306 In stide of taies, he hathe bugbeares in his head.

a1586 Sir P. Sidney Arcadia (1590) iii. xxvi. sig. Yy6 At the worst it is but a bug-beare.

1642 D. Rogers Naaman To Rdr. sig. B^v All you that thinke originall sinne a bugbeare.

1678 S. Butler Hudibras: Third Pt. iii. 193 Who would believe, what strange Bug-bears Mankind creates it self, of Fears?

1717 W. Kennett Let. in H. Ellis Orig. Lett. Eng. Hist. (1827) 2nd Ser. IV. 306 The king of Sweden is every day a less bugbear to us.

1783 S. Johnson Let. 27 Nov. (1994) IV. 250 Hystericks..are the bug bears of disease of great terrour but little danger.

1841 C. Dickens Old Curiosity Shop i. iii. 86 What have I done to be made a bugbear of?

1871 E. A. Freeman Hist. Norman Conquest (1876) IV. xvii. 51 Confiscation, a word which is so frightful a bugbear to most modern ears.

1880 ‘G. Eliot’ Let. 14 Sept. (1956) VII. 322 Our only bugbear—it is a very little one—is the having to make preliminary arrangements towards settling ourselves in the new house.

1903 H. Keller Story of my Life xx. 71 The examinations are the chief bugbears of my college life.

1966 Eng. Stud. 48 163 We hear far too much of those bugbears, the ‘grammarians’, and their camp-followers, Fowler and Partridge.

2010 Independent 3 Dec. (Viewspaper section) 20/1 It is a bugbear of mine that in swanky hotels..the hall porter insists on commandeering bags that you are perfectly able to carry yourself.

?c1570 Buggbears iii. iii, in R. W. Bond Early Plays from Italian (1911) 117 Hob Goblin, Rawhead, & bloudibone the ouglie hagges Bugbeares, & helhoundes, and hecate the nyght mare.

1592 T. Nashe Pierce Penilesse (Brit. Libr. copy) sig. I4 ^v Meere bugge-beares to scare boyes.

1607 E. Topsell Hist. Foure-footed Beastes 453 Certaine Lamiæ..which like Bug-beares would eat vp crying boies.

1651 T. Hobbes Leviathan i. xii. 55 Ghosts of men deceased, and a whole kingdome of Fayries, and Bugbears.

1758 S. Johnson Idler 24 June 89 To tell children of Bugbears and Goblings.

1840 R. H. Barham Look at Clock in Ingoldsby Legends 1st Ser. 61 The bugbear behind him is after him still.

1953 K. M. Briggs Personnel of Fairyland Gloss. 193 Bodach, the Scottish form of bugbear or bug-a-boo. He comes down the chimney to fetch naughty children.

1998 M. Warner No Go Bogeyman (2000) i. 35 Bugbears are not Death's twins or his messengers,..they resemble Death in matters of appetite and movement.

c1600 Timon (1980) i. ii. 6 Thou shalt not fright me with thye bugbeare wordes.

1700 G. Ridpath Scotland's Grievances rel. to Darien 25 Frighten'd out of their Rights by the bugbear words of Treason and Sedition.

1790 Diary; or, Woodfall's Reg. 16 Apr. This day we shall hear a thousand changes rung on that awful bugbear word Excise.

1868 ‘F. Fern’ Folly as it Flies 345 He looked doubtfully at my feet, and mentioned the bugbear word ‘dirt’.

1998 H. Mitchell On Gardening (1999) 176 Before any gardener works himself into a fit about the oncoming winter, he should remember winter is a bugbear word to terrify children.

1862 Mrs. J. B. Speid Our Last Years in India 150 The assaults and tyrannies of bugbeardom.

1897 Kindergarten Mag. Mar. 179 Miss Baber..has endeavored to lift this science out of the bugbeardom in which it has so long languished.

1800 R. Southey Let. 5 July in J. W. Robberds Mem. W. Taylor (1843) I. 35/2 Bonaparte..a name now growing more bugbearish than ever.

1921 Weekly Underwriter 3 Dec. 1058/2 The man in close contact with the public soon discovered the desirability of opposing any antagonism to his official representation of bugbearish corporations and trusts.

1997 C. A. Clegg Orig. Man viii. 201 He genuinely relished his rather bugbearish image in the media.

1644 J. Booker No Mercurius Aquaticus 7 Tell Ursa Maior, and Ursa Minor, that..I have appointed him [sc. Endimyon Porter] to be their chief Beare-Ward.., that Mercury the Irishman may passe freely to Iupiters Court, without fear of being Bugg Bear'd by the way.

1650 R. Stapleton tr. F. Strada De Bello Belgico x. 1 They carryed the Warre up and downe, only to bug-beare Townes and Villages [L. oppidulis ac pagis arma circumferre].

1705 S. Whately in W. S. Perry Hist. Coll. Amer. Colonial Church: Virginia (1870) I. 167 To be bugbear'd out of our senses by big words.

1775 Inq. Policy of Laws 75 The People of Ireland were so industriously bugbeared (to use his own Expression) with Fears of the Pretender.

1850 R. Armitage Dr. Johnson: Relig. Life & Death 460 The clergy cry out against such things as are here recommended, as leanings to Popery, so perpetually is Protestantism bugbeared by her own confession of weakness.

1888 ‘Garryowen’ Chron. Early Melbourne II. l. 687 From the evil of the abortive celebration sprang one good result—viz., that no other July anniversary was bug-beared by an Orange procession.

1903 M. Van Vorst in B. Van Vorst & M. Van Vorst Woman who Toils viii. 248 The clock of Excelsior..glared in upon us, giant hands going round, seeming to threaten the hour of dawn and frightening sleep and mocking, bugbearing the short hours which the working-woman might claim for repose.

1975 Times 28 Apr. 13 The same moral pretentiousness and dishonesty that has bugbeared United States policy in Indo-China.