From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishincubusin‧cu‧bus /ˈɪŋkjəbəs/ noun (plural incubuses or incubi /-baɪ/) [countable] 1 WORRIEDsomeone or something that causes a lot of worries or problems Joyce regarded his US citizenship as a moral and political incubus.2 ROa male devil that in the past was believed to have sex with a sleeping woman → succubus
Examples from the Corpus
incubus• Public services, by comparison, are an incubus.• A bog-eyed incubus on day release from hell?• From the beginning, however, the engineers, like the artillery, were free of the incubus of purchased commissions.Origin incubus (1300-1400) Late Latin Latin incubare; → INCUBATE 