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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, a notable example being a 1998 humorous article published by BBC News.<ref name=bbc>The A–Z of Fear, a 30 October 1998 BBC News unsigned article in the "Entertainment" section</ref> 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".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Such practice is known as content spamming and is used to attract search engines.
An article published in 1897 in the 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 and Template:Not a typo [sic] – fear of the number 13 ...)".<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
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Psychological conditions
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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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A
| Phobia
|
Condition
|
| Achluophobia
|
fear of darkness
|
| Acousticophobia
|
fear of noise – a branch of phonophobia
|
| Acrophobia
|
fear of heights
|
| Aerophobia
|
fear of aircraft or flying
|
| Agoraphobia
|
fear of certain inescapable/unsafe situations
|
| Agyrophobia
|
fear of crossing streets
|
| Aichmophobia
|
fear of sharp or pointed objects such as needles, pins or knives
|
| Ailurophobia
|
fear/dislike of cats, a zoophobia
|
| Alektorophobia
|
fear/dislike of chickens, a zoophobia
|
| Anatidaephobia
|
fear/dislike of ducks, a zoophobia
|
| Algophobia
|
fear of pain
|
| Ancraophobia
|
fear of wind or drafts
|
| Androphobia
|
fear of adult men<ref name="Campbell2009">Template:Cite book</ref>
|
| Anthropophobia
|
fear of human beings<ref name="Campbell2009"/>
|
| Apeirophobia
|
excessive fear of infinity, eternity, and the uncountable
|
| Aphenphosmphobia
|
fear of being touched
|
| Apiphobia
|
fear of bees, a zoophobia
|
| Apotemnophobia
|
fear of amputees or of becoming an amputee<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
|
| Aquaphobia
|
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.
|
| Arachnophobia
|
fear of spiders and other arachnids such as scorpions, a zoophobia
|
| Astraphobia
|
fear of thunder and lightning
|
| Atelophobia
|
fear of imperfection; a synonym of perfectionism
|
| Athazagoraphobia
|
fear of forgetting, forgetfulness or being forgotten<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
|
| Atychiphobia
|
fear of failure<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> or negative evaluations of others
|
| Autophobia
|
fear of isolation<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
|
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
K
L
M
N
| Phobia
|
Condition
|
| Necrophobia
|
fear of corpses or things associated with death (not to be confused with death anxiety)
|
| Neophobia, cainophobia, cainotophobia, centophobia, kainolophobia, kainophobia, metathesiophobia, prosophobia
|
fear of newness, novelty, change or progress
|
| Noctiphobia
|
fear of the night
|
| Nomophobia
|
fear of being out of mobile phone contact
|
| Nosocomephobia
|
fear of hospitals
|
| Nosophobia
|
fear of contracting a disease
|
| Numerophobia
|
fear of numbers
|
| Nyctophobia, achluophobia, lygophobia, scotophobia
|
fear of darkness
|
O
P
R
S
T
| Phobia
|
Condition
|
| Taphophobia, taphephobia
|
fear of graves, or fear of being placed in a grave while still alive
|
| Technophobia
|
fear of advanced technology (see also Luddite)
|
| Telephone phobia
|
fear or reluctance of making or taking telephone calls
|
| Teratophobia
|
fear of giving birth to a monster<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> or a disfigured foetus<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
|
| Tetraphobia
|
fear of the number 4
|
| Thalassophobia
|
fear of the sea, or fear of being in the ocean
|
| Thanatophobia
|
fear of dying, a synonym of death anxiety; not to be confused with necrophobia
|
| Thermophobia
|
fear of intolerance to high temperatures
|
| Tokophobia
|
fear of childbirth or pregnancy
|
| Tomophobia
|
fear of invasive medical procedures<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
|
| Tonitrophobia
|
fear of thunder
|
| Toxiphobia, toxophobia, iophobia
|
fear of being poisoned
|
| Traumatophobia
|
a synonym for injury phobia: fear of having an injury
|
| Trichophobia
|
delusional fear of something in the roots of the hair that stops it from growing,<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> or fear of hair loss
|
| Triskaidekaphobia, terdekaphobia
|
fear of the number 13
|
| Trypanophobia, belonephobia, enetophobia
|
fear of needles or injections
|
| Trypophobia
|
fear of holes or textures with a pattern of holes<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
|
V
Z
Cultural prejudices and discrimination
Ethnic/national/religious prejudices and discrimination
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.
Medical conditions
Cultural phenomena
-phobia in the natural sciences
In the natural sciences, words with the suffix -phobia/-phobic generally describe a predisposition for avoidance or exclusion.
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.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
- 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.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
- 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 Template:Linktext "peanut" and Template:Linktext "butter".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The word is used by Charles M. Schulz in a 1982 installment of his Peanuts comic strip,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and by Peter O'Donnell in his 1985 Modesty Blaise adventure novel Dead Man's Handle.
- Charlophobia – the fictional fear of any person named Charlotte or Charlie, mentioned in the comedic book A Duck is Watching Me: Strange and Unusual Phobias (2014), by Bernie Hobbs. The phobia was created to mock name bias, a form of discrimination studied by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley and the University of Chicago.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
- Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia – fear of long words,<ref>Template:Cite newsTemplate:Cbignore</ref> from the root word Template:Wikt-lang combined with monstrum and hippopotamus. This was mentioned on the first episode of Brainiac Series Five as a Tickle's Teaser.
- 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.
- Luposlipaphobia – fear of being pursued by timber wolves around a kitchen table while wearing socks on a newly waxed floor. Coined humorously by cartoonist Gary Larson for his comic The Far Side.
- 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 has 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 or androids, also known as "Grimwade's Syndrome". It was first used in "The Robots of Death",<ref>Template:Cite episode</ref> 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.<ref>Template:Cite conference</ref>
- Venustraphobia – fear of beautiful women, according to a 1998 humorous article published by BBC News.<ref name=bbc/>
See also
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References
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Further reading
External links
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