Crossword-Solution: BUGBEAR 7 letters, 49 clues 🏆 scrabble score: 12

Indeed, the use of `bug' to mean an industrial defect was already established in Thomas Edison's time, and `bug' in the sense of an disruptive event goes back to Shakespeare! In the first edition of Samuel Johnson's dictionary one meaning of `bug' is "A frightful object; a walking spectre"; this is traced to `bugbear', a Welsh term for a variety of mythological monster which (to complete the circle) has recently been reintroduced into the popular lexicon through fantasy role-playing games.

From the time of his joining the Spearmen, Thomas Smith became in consequence a bugbear to his brethren in the faith.

This was easily ascertained; for Caleb had been in the village one morning by five o’clock, to borrow “twa chappins of ale and a kipper” for the messenger’s refreshment, and the poor fellow had been ill for twenty-four hours at Luckie Sma’trash’s, in consequence of dining upon “saut saumon and sour drink.” So that the existence of a correspondence betwixt the Marquis and his distressed kinsman, which Sir William Ashton had sometimes treated as a bugbear, was proved beyond the possibility of further doubt.

And where do most of them go to? Not to strengthen and develop our colonies, but the United States--a not always friendly people, and just now your free-trader's bugbear!” “Well, well,” said the minister, “drop that question.

What have I done to be made a bugbear of, and to be shunned and dreaded as if I brought the plague? He’ll tell you that I have no natural affection; and that I care no more for Nell, for her own sake, than I do for him.