"-phobia" redirects here. For the class of psychological disorders, see Phobia.
The English suffixes -phobia, -phobic, -phobe (from Greek φόβος phobos, "fear") occur in technical usage in psychiatry to construct words that describe irrational, abnormal, unwarranted, persistent, or disabling fear as a mental disorder (e.g. agoraphobia), in chemistry to describe chemical aversions (e.g. hydrophobic), in biology to describe organisms that dislike certain conditions (e.g. acidophobia), and in medicine to describe hypersensitivity to a stimulus, usually sensory (e.g. photophobia). In common usage, they also form words that describe dislike or hatred of a particular thing or subject (e.g. homophobia). The suffix is antonymic to -phil-.
For more information on the psychiatric side, including how psychiatry groups phobias such as agoraphobia, social phobia, or simple phobia, see phobia. The following lists include words ending in -phobia, and include fears that have acquired names. In some cases, the naming of phobias has become a word game, of notable example being a 1998 humorous article published by BBC News.[1] In some cases, a word ending in -phobia may have an antonym with the suffix -phil-, e.g. Germanophobe/Germanophile.
Many -phobia lists circulate on the Internet, with words collected from indiscriminate sources, often copying each other. Also, a number of psychiatric websites exist that at the first glance cover a huge number of phobias, but in fact use a standard text to fit any phobia and reuse it for all unusual phobias by merely changing the name. Sometimes it leads to bizarre results, such as suggestions to cure "prostitute phobia".[2] Such practice is known as content spamming and is used to attract search engines.
An article published in 1897 in American Journal of Psychology noted "the absurd tendency to give Greek names to objects feared (which, as Arndt says, would give us such terms as klopsophobia – fear of thieves, triakaidekaphobia – fear of the number 13....)".[3]
Specialists may prefer to avoid the suffix -phobia and use more descriptive terms such as personality disorders, anxiety disorders, and avoidant personality disorder. Terms should strictly have a Greek prefix although many are irregularly formed with Latin or even English prefixes. Many use inaccurate or imprecise prefixes, such as aerophobia (fear of air) for fear of flying.
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fear of water. Distinct from hydrophobia, a scientific property that makes chemicals averse to interaction with water, as well as an archaic name for rabies.
The suffix -phobia is used to coin terms that denote a particular anti-ethnic or anti-demographic sentiment, such as Americanophobia, Europhobia, Francophobia, Hispanophobia, and Indophobia. Often a synonym with the prefix "anti-" already exists (e.g. Polonophobia vs. anti-Polonism). Anti-religious sentiments are expressed in terms such as Christianophobia and Islamophobia.
Phobia
Condition
Afrophobia
fear/dislike of Africans
Albanophobia
fear/dislike of Albanians
Anglophobia
fear/dislike of England or English culture
Christianophobia
fear/dislike of Christians
Germanophobia
fear/dislike of Germans
Hinduphobia
fear/dislike of Hindus
Hispanophobia
fear/dislike of Hispanic people, Hispanic culture and the Spanish language
In the natural sciences, words with the suffix -phobia/-phobic generally describe a predisposition for avoidance and/or exclusion. For antonyms, see here
the property given to materials that are extremely difficult to get wet
Thermophobia
aversion to heat
Jocular and fictional phobias
Aibohphobia – a humorous term for the fear of palindromes, which is a palindrome itself. The term is a piece of computer humor entered into the 1981 The Devil's DP Dictionary.[28]
Anatidaephobia – the fictional fear that one is being watched by a duck. The word comes from the name of the family Anatidae, and was used in Gary Larson's The Far Side.[29]
Anoraknophobia – a portmanteau of "anorak" and "arachnophobia". It was used in the Wallace and Gromit comic book Anoraknophobia. Also the title of an album by Marillion.
Arachibutyrophobia – fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of the mouth, from Latin arachis "peanut" and butyrum "butter".[30] The word is used by Charles M. Schulz in a 1982 installment of his Peanuts comic strip,[31] and by Peter O'Donnell in his 1985 Modesty Blaiseadventure novelDead Man's Handle.
Keanuphobia – fear of Keanu Reeves, portrayed in the Dean Koontz book, False Memory, where a woman has an irrational fear of Reeves and has to see her psychiatrist, Mark Ahriman, each week, unaware that she only has the fear in the first place because Ahriman implanted it via hypnotic suggestion to amuse himself. He calls her "Keanuphobe" in his head.
Nihilophobia – fear of nothingness, from Latin nihil and "nothing, none", as described by the Doctor in the Star Trek: Voyager episode "Night". Voyager's morale officer and chef Neelix suffers from this condition, having panic attacks while the ship was traversing a dark expanse of space known as the Void. It is also the title of a 2008 album by Neuronium.
Robophobia – irrational fear of robots and/or androids, also known as "Grimwade's Syndrome". It was first used in "The Robots of Death",[33] the fifth serial of the 14th season of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who.
Semaphobia – fear of average web developers to use Semantic Web technologies.[34]
Venustraphobia – fear of beautiful women, according to a 1998 humorous article published by BBC News.[1]Venustraphobia is also the title of a 2006 album by Casbah Club.
^"Teratophobia (Concept Id: C0522188)". MedGen. National Center for Biotechnology Information, U.S. National Library of Medicine. Retrieved 12 February 2021.
^Jackson H (1932). The Fear of Books. University of Illinois. ISBN978-0-252-07040-2.
^Fischler C (1992). "From lipophilia to lipophobia. Changing attitudes and behaviors towards fat: a socio-historical approach". In Mela DJ (ed.). Dietary fats determinants of preference, selection, and consumption. London, New York: Elsevier Applied Science. pp. 103–115.
^Askegaard S, Ostberg J (2003). "Consumers' Experience of Lipophobia: A Swedish Study". Advances in Consume Research. 30: 161.
^Farmer B (10 January 2008). "Phobia catalogue reveals bizarre list of fears". The Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on 12 January 2022. A catalogue of unusual phobias reveals that the fear of long words is known as hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia.
^Lanthaler M, Gütl C (2011). A Semantic Description Language for RESTful Data Services to Combat Semaphobia. Proceedings of the 2011 5th IEEE International Conference on Digital Ecosystems and Technologies (DEST). Daejeon, South Korea. pp. 47–53. doi:10.1109/DEST.2011.5936597. ISBN978-1-4577-0871-8. S2CID14815713.
Further reading
Aldrich C (2 December 2002). The Aldrich Dictionary of Phobias and Other Word Families. Trafford Publishing. pp. 224–236. ISBN1-55369-886-X.