The bogeyman, also boogeyman and bogyman, is a ghost-like monster that children often believe is real.

The bogeyman has no specific appearance. He is sometimes equated with specific real-life persons, such as serial killer Albert Fish.

Sometimes parents will, as a way of controlling their children, encourage belief in a bogeyman that only preys on children who misbehave. Such bogeymen may be said to target a specific transgression—for instance, a bogeyman that persecutes children who suck their thumbs—or just general misbehaviour.

It is said that the Bogeyman takes the shape and form of a child's worst fear in order to feed on them. The Bogeyman is sometimes said to be woman nor man, and is in the form of a shadowy figure when it is not so readily to scare a more difficult child.

The term "bogeyman" is also used metaphorically to mean a person or thing of which someone else has an irrational fear.

See also

• Boogeyman - A 2005 horror film.

External links

• The Bogeyman of Earthquake Prediction (an example of the metaphorical use of "bogeyman")

• Napoleon.org - fun stuff (describing the origins of the term 'bogeyman' - an English reference to the infamous diminuitive Corsican conqueror)
• talk to him online (an online game)