hobgoblin

noun

1. A small, ugly goblin that makes trouble for humans.

   “The eyes blinked out and he heard a faint grunt, followed by the sounds of the Hobgoblin scrambling further back into the tunnel, away from the faint sunlight and the Ur'hunglav's domain.”

   “The monster goes unrecognized because he looks like a harmless, pudgy nobody rather than like a hobgoblin. But he reveals his hobgoblin nature through music.”

2. (broadly, figuratively)A source of dread, fear or apprehension; a bugbear.

   “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do.”

   “Under "Fallacies of Danger," then, is listed the subhead of "The Hobgoblin Argument, or, No Innovation, in which the hobgoblin in question is anarchy; which tremendous spectre has for its forerunner the monster innovation." A hot button like this would presumably elicit a visceral response even from Hamilton whose aversion to the hobgoblin of parliamentary reform was apparently his sole unreasoning reflex.”

   “However, the public seems to have been able to retain much of its sense of alarm about internal attacks even when the al-Qaeda hobgoblin doesn't actually carry any out.”