From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article is about the suffix
-phobia. For the class of psychological disorders, see
Phobia.
The English suffixes
-phobia, -phobic,
-phobe (of Greek origin: φόβος/φοβία ) occur
in technical usage in psychiatry to construct words that describe
irrational, 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. The suffix is antonymic to -phil-.
For more information on the psychiatric side, including how
psychiatry groups phobias 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.
See also the category:Phobias.
Phobia
lists
A large number of-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.
Psychological conditions
In many cases specialists prefer to avoid the suffix
-phobia and use more descriptive terms, see, e.g., personality disorders, anxiety
disorders, avoidant personality
disorder, love-shyness.
- Ablutophobia –
fear of bathing, washing, or cleaning.
- Acrophobia,
Altophobia – fear of heights.
- Agoraphobia, Agoraphobia
Without History of Panic Disorder – fear of places or events
where escape is impossible or when help is unavailable.
- Agraphobia – fear
of sexual abuse.
- Aichmophobia –
fear of sharp or pointed objects (as a needle, knife or a pointing
finger).
- Algophobia – fear
of pain.
- Agyrophobia –
fear of crossing roads.
- Androphobia –
fear of men.
- Anthropophobia – fear of people or being
in a company, a form of social phobia.
- Anthophobia –
fear of flowers.
- Aquaphobia – fear
of water.
- Astraphobia,
Astrapophobia, Brontophobia, Keraunophobia – fear of thunder, lightning and storms; especially common in
young children.
- Aviophobia, Aviatophobia – fear of
flying.
- Bacillophobia, Bacteriophobia,
Microbiophobia – fear of microbes and bacteria.
- Blood-injection-injury
type phobia – a DSM-IV subtype of specific phobias
- Catoptrophobia - fear of mirrors or of
one's own reflection.
- Chorophobia -
fear of dancing.
- Cibophobia, Sitophobia – aversion to
food, synonymous to Anorexia
nervosa.
- Claustrophobia – fear of confined
spaces.
- Coulrophobia –
fear of clowns (not restricted
to evil clowns).
- Decidophobia –
fear of making decisions.
- Dental phobia, Dentophobia, Odontophobia –
fear of dentists and dental procedures
- Dysmorphophobia, or body dysmorphic disorder – a
phobic obsession with a real or imaginary body defect.
- Emetophobia –
fear of vomiting.
- Ergasiophobia, Ergophobia – fear of work or
functioning, or a surgeon's
fear of operating.
- Ergophobia – fear
of work or functioning.
- Erotophobia –
fear of sexual love or sexual questions.
- Erythrophobia – pathological blushing.
- Gelotophobia -
fear of being laughed at.
- Gephyrophobia – fear of bridges.
- Genophobia,
Coitophobia – fear of sexual intercourse.
- Gerascophobia – fear of growing old or
ageing.
- Gerontophobia – fear of growing old, or a
hatred or fear of the elderly.
- Glossophobia –
fear of speaking in public or of trying to speak.
- Gymnophobia –
fear of nudity.
- Gynophobia – fear
of women.
- Haptephobia – fear of being touched.
- Heliophobia –
fear of sunlight.
- Hemophobia, Haemophobia – fear of blood.
- Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia
– fear of the number 666.
- Hoplophobia –
fear of weapons, specifically
firearms (Generally a
political term but the clinical phobia is also documented).
- Ligyrophobia – fear of loud noises.
- Lipophobia –
fear/avoidance of fats in food.
- Medication phobia - fear of
medications
- Megalophobia - fear of large/oversized
objects.
- Mysophobia – fear
of germs, contamination or dirt.
- Necrophobia –
fear of death, the dead.
- Neophobia,
Cainophobia, Cainotophobia, Cenophobia, Centophobia, Kainolophobia,
Kainophobia – fear of newness, novelty.
- Nomophobia – fear
of being out of mobile phone contact.
- Nosophobia – fear
of contracting a disease.
- Nosocomephobia - fear of hospitals.
- Nyctophobia,
Achluophobia, Lygophobia, Scotophobia – fear of darkness.
- Osmophobia,
Olfactophobia – fear of smells.
- Paraskavedekatriaphobia,
Paraskevidekatriaphobia, Friggatriskaidekaphobia – fear of Friday the
13th.
- Panphobia – fear of
everything or constantly afraid without knowing what is causing
it.
- Phasmophobia -
fear of ghosts, spectres or phantasms.
- Phagophobia –
fear of swallowing.
- Pharmacophobia – same as medication
phobia
- Phobophobia –
fear of having a phobia.
- Phonophobia –
fear of loud sounds.
- Pyrophobia – fear
of fire.
- Radiophobia –
fear of radioactivity or X-rays.
- Sociophobia
– fear of people or social situations
- Scopophobia –
fear of being looked at or stared at.
- Somniphobia – fear of sleep.
- Spectrophobia – fear of mirrors and one's
own reflections.
- Taphophobia – fear of the grave, or fear of
being placed in a grave while still alive.
- Technophobia –
fear of technology
(see also Luddite).
- Telephone
phobia, fear or reluctance of making or taking phone
calls.
- Tetraphobia –
fear of the number 4.
- Tokophobia – fear
of childbirth.
- Tomophobia – fear
or anxiety of surgeries/surgical operations.
- Traumatophobia – a synonym for injury phobia, a
fear of having an injury
- Triskaidekaphobia, Terdekaphobia –
fear of the number 13.
- Trypanophobia, Belonephobia, Enetophobia
– fear of needles or injections.
- Workplace
phobia – fear of the work place.
- Xenophobia – fear
of strangers, foreigners, or aliens.
Animal
phobias
Non-psychological
conditions
Biology,
chemistry
Biologists use a number
of -phobia/-phobic terms to describe predispositions by
plants and animals against certain conditions. For antonyms, see here.
Prejudices and
discrimination
The suffix -phobia is used to coin terms that denote a
particular anti-ethnic or anti-demographic sentiment, such as 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.
Other prejudices include:
Jocular and fictional
phobias
- Aibohphobia – a joke 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[3]
- Anachrophobia – fear of temporal
displacement, from a Doctor Who novel by Jonathan
Morris.
- Anatidaephobia – fear of being watched by a duck. Comes from Gary Larson's The Far
Side.[4]
- Anoraknophobia – a portmanteau of "anorak" and "arachnophobia".
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. The word is used by Peter O'Donnell in his 1985 Modesty Blaise
adventure novel Dead Man's Handle.[5] It had
circulated, unattributed, in the Internet for some time until it
landed at the CTRN Phobia Clinic
website: "Working one-on-one with one of our team, with
guaranteed lifetime elimination of Sticky Peanut Butter Phobia.
From $1497 and up."
- Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia – fear of long words.[6]
Hippopoto- "big" due to its allusion to the Greek-derived word hippopotamus (though
this is derived as hippo- "horse" compounded with
potam-os "river", so originally meaning "river horse";
according to the Oxford English, "hippopotamine" has been
construed as large since 1847, so this coinage is reasonable);
-monstr- is from Latin words meaning "monstrous", -o- is a
noun-compounding vowel; -sesquipedali- comes from "sesquipedalian"
meaning a long word (literally "a foot and a half long" in Latin),
-o- is a noun-compounding vowel, and -phobia means "fear". Note:
This was mentioned on the first episode of Brainiac Series Five as
one of Tickle's
Teasers.
- Nihilophobia - fear of nothingness, 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.
- Venustraphobia – fear of beautiful women, according to a 1998
humorous
article published by BBC
News.[1] The
word is a portmanteau of "Venus trap" and "phobia". Venustraphobia is the title of a
2006 album by Casbah Club.
Miscellaneous
References
- Chris Aldrich (2002-12-02). The
Aldrich Dictionary of Phobias and Other Word Families.
Trafford Publishing. ISBN
1-55369-886-X.
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