[ noun ] an imaginary monster used to frighten children <noun.person>
Bogeyman \Bo"gey*man\, n.; pl. {Bogeymen}. A goblin; a bugbear; a {bogey[1]}. This is the form used by parents to frighten children; as, if you don't eat your vegetables, the bogeyman will get you.
Syn: bogey. [Webster 1913 Suppl.]
Boogeyman \Boog"ey*man\, Bogeyman \Bo"gey*man\, n. Something frightful, as a specter; anything imaginary that causes needless fright; something used to excite needless fear; also, something really dangerous, or an imaginary monster, used to frighten children, etc. ``Go to sleep or the Boogeyman will get you.''
The title derives from a famous N'Awlins bogeyman of the past, a murderer who galvanized the city by promising to spare those from whose houses jazz music blared on the nights he chose to roam.
"The market is confronting the economic bogeyman that was out there before the war," says John Burke, a New York Stock Exchange floor trader.
The bogeyman image was absolutely crucial to the needs of the real special interests, the Spitz Channels of the left.
Victor Navasky, editor of The Nation, does not disparage the bogeyman theory, noting: "What's bad for the country is good for The Nation."
His agents were the omnipresent Tonton Macoutes _ in Creole folkore, a macoute is a bogeyman _ with their dark glasses, sneers and guns.