Definition of "bugaboo" [bug•a•boo]

• An object of obsessive, usually exaggerated fear or anxiety: "Boredom, laziness and failure . . . These bugaboos, magnified by imagination, keep [the workaholic] running” ( Dun's Review). (noun)
• A recurring or persistent problem: "the bugaboos that have plagued vision systems: high price and slow throughput” ( Lawrence A. Goshorn). (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "My main bugaboo is Labour's obession with non essential NHS staff-I know of a mental health trust that has a communications staff of 10 - and I have no doubt that this is also true throughout the country."
• "Rothbard extended its basic point into the market itself, and pointed out that in a free market, large firms tend to be unstable, and the ‘one big cartel’ bugaboo is totally unstable; just as unstable as a socialist system."
• "The bigger trading bugaboo is contraction: Marlins/Montreal."