List of phobias#Jocular and fictional phobias
{{Short description|List of fear of different things or objects}}
{{redirect|-phobia|the class of psychological disorders|Phobia}}
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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, of notable example being a 1998 humorous article published by BBC News.[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/low/entertainment/173250.stm The A–Z of Fear], a 30 October 1998 BBC News unsigned article in the "Entertainment" section 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".{{cite web|url=http://archive.webpronews.com/insidesearch/insidesearch/wpn-56-20050825ContentSpammersHelpYouOvercomeProstitutePhobia.html| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170213164100/http://archive.webpronews.com/insidesearch/insidesearch/wpn-56-20050825ContentSpammersHelpYouOvercomeProstitutePhobia.html| archive-date=13 February 2017| url-status=dead| title=Content Spammers Help You Overcome Prostitute Phobia |publisher=Webpronews.com |date=25 August 2005 |access-date=26 August 2013}} 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, {{Not a typo|triakaidekaphobia}} [sic] – fear of the number 13 ...)".{{Cite journal | vauthors = Hall GS |title=A Study of Fears |journal=American Journal of Psychology |volume=8 |number=2 |date=1897 |page=157 |jstor=1410940 |publisher=University of Illinois Press |doi=10.2307/1410940 |issn = 0002-9556}}
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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.
{{Incomplete list|date=June 2014}}
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= A =
= B =
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! width="200px" | Phobia ! width="600px" | Condition |
Bacteriophobia
|fear of bacteria |
Basophobia, basiphobia
|fear associated with astasia-abasia (fear of walking/standing erect) and a fear of falling |
Batrachophobia |
Belonephobia
|fear of needles or pins{{Cite web |last=Akinola |first=Deborah |date=2020-10-17 |title=Belonephobia: The Fear of Pins and Needles |url=https://asoothinghealth.com/belonephobia/ |access-date=2023-02-06 |website=a Soothing Health |language=en-US}}{{Cite journal |last=Yim |first=Louisa |date=Aug 2006 |title=Belonephobia--a fear of needles |url=https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16894439/ |journal=Australian Family Physician |volume=35 |issue=8 |pages=623–624 |issn=0300-8495 |pmid=16894439}} |
Bibliophobia
|fear of books |
Blood-injection-injury type phobia
|a DSM-IV subtype of specific phobias |
= C =
= D =
= E =
= F =
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! width="200px" | Phobia ! width="600px" | Condition |
Frigophobia
|fear of becoming too cold |
= G =
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! width="200px" | Phobia ! width="600px" | Condition |
Galeophobia
|fear of sharks |
Gamophobia
|fear of marriage |
Gelotophobia
|fear of being laughed at |
Gephyrophobia
|fear of bridges |
Genophobia, coitophobia
|fear of sexual intercourse |
Genuphobia
|fear of knees or the act of kneeling |
Gerascophobia
|fear of growing old or aging |
Gerontophobia
|fear of growing old, or a hatred or fear of the elderly |
Globophobia
|fear of balloons |
Glossophobia
|fear of speaking in public or of trying to speak |
Gymnophobia
|fear of nudity{{cite book| vauthors = Bullough VL, Bullough B |title=Human Sexuality: An Encyclopedia|date=2014|publisher=Routledge|isbn=9781135825096|page=449|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UHymAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA449|language=en}} |
Gynophobia
|fear of adult women |
= H =
= I =
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! width="200px" | Phobia ! width="600px" | Condition |
Ichthyophobia
|fear of fish, including fear of eating fish, or fear of dead fish, a zoophobia |
Insectophobia |
= K =
= L =
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! width="200px" | Phobia ! width="600px" | Condition |
Lilapsophobia
|fear of tornadoes or hurricanes |
Lepidopterophobia
| fear of butterflies and moths, a zoophobia |
= M =
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! width="200px" | Phobia ! width="600px" | Condition |
Mageiricophobia
|fear of cooking |
Masklophobia |
Melissophobia, apiphobia |
Monophobia
|fear of being alone or isolated or of one's self |
Musophobia, murophobia, suriphobia |
Mycophobia
|fear of mushrooms{{Cite journal |last=Ott |first=Jonathan |date=1976 |title=Psycho-mycological studies of Amanita–from ancient sacrament to modern phobia |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02791072.1976.10472005?journalCode=ujpd19 |journal=Journal of Psychedelic Drugs|volume=8 |pages=27–35 |doi=10.1080/02791072.1976.10472005 |url-access=subscription }} |
Myrmecophobia |
Mysophobia, germophobia
|fear of germs, contamination or dirt |
= N =
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! width="200px" | Phobia ! width="600px" | 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 |
Noctiphobia
|fear of the night |
Nomophobia
|fear of being out of mobile phone contact |
Nosocomephobia
|fear of hospitals |
Nosophobia
|fear of contracting a disease |
Nostophobia, ecophobia
|fear of returning home |
Numerophobia
|fear of numbers |
Nyctophobia, achluophobia, lygophobia, scotophobia
|fear of darkness |
= O =
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! width="200px" | Phobia ! width="600px" | Condition |
Obesophobia
|fear of gaining weight |
Oikophobia
|fear of home surroundings and household appliances |
Odontophobia |
Ommetaphobia
|fear of eyes |
Oneirophobia
|fear of dreams |
Ophidiophobia |
Ophthalmophobia
|fear of being stared at |
Ornithophobia |
Osmophobia, olfactophobia
|fear of odors |
Ostraconophobia |
= P =
= R =
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! width="200px" | Phobia ! width="600px" | Condition |
Radiophobia
|fear of radioactivity or X-rays |
Ranidaphobia |
= S =
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! width="200px" | Phobia ! width="600px" | Condition |
Scopophobia
|fear of being looked at or stared at |
Sexophobia
|fear of sexual organs or sexual activities |
Siderodromophobia |
Social phobia
|fear of people or social situations |
Somniphobia
|fear of sleep |
Spectrophobia
|fear of mirrors |
Spheksophobia |
Stasiphobia |
Submechanophobia
|fear of partially or fully submerged man-made objects{{cite book| veditors = Roane HS, Ringdahl JE, Falcomata TS |date=2015|title=Clinical and Organizational Applications of Applied Behavior Analysis|publisher=Academic Press |page=461 |isbn=978-0-12-420249-8}}{{cite web |url= https://www.popularmechanics.com/adventure/outdoors/g29370431/best-shipwrecks/ |title=The 25 Coolest Shipwrecks in the World| vauthors = Linder C |date=29 November 2019|website=Popular Mechanics|access-date=7 July 2020}} |
= T =
= V =
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! width="200px" | Phobia ! width="600px" | Condition |
Vehophobia
|fear of driving |
Veloxrotaphobia
|fear of roller coasters |
Verminophobia
|fear of germs |
= X =
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! width="200px" | Phobia ! width="600px" | Condition |
Xanthophobia
|fear of the color yellow |
= Z =
Cultural prejudices and discrimination
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! width="200px" | Phobia ! width="600px" | Condition |
Acephobia
|fear/dislike of asexual people |
Aporophobia
|fear/dislike of people without resources |
Arophobia
|fear/dislike of aromantic people |
Biphobia
|fear/dislike of bisexuality or bisexuals |
Ephebiphobia
|fear/dislike of youth |
Gayphobia
|fear/dislike of gay men (specifically) |
Gerontophobia, gerascophobia
|fear/dislike of aging or the elderly |
Heterophobia
|fear/dislike of heterosexuals |
Homophobia
|fear/dislike of homosexuality, homosexuals, or gays (as opposed to lesbians) |
Lesbophobia
|fear/dislike of lesbians |
Pedophobia |
Psychophobia
|fear/dislike of mental illness or the mentally ill |
Transphobia
|fear/dislike of transgender people |
= 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
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! width="200px" | Phobia ! width="600px" | Condition |
Osmophobia
|hypersensitivity to smells causing aversion to odors |
Phonophobia
|hypersensitivity to sound causing aversion to sounds |
Photophobia
|hypersensitivity to light causing aversion to light |
Cultural phenomena
''-phobia'' in the natural sciences
In the natural sciences, words with the suffix -phobia/-phobic generally describe a predisposition for avoidance and/or exclusion. For antonyms, see here
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! width="200px" | Phobia ! width="600px" | Condition |
Acidophobia
|preference for non-acidic conditions |
Heliophobia
|aversion to sunlight |
Hydrophobia
|the property of being repelled by water |
Lipophobicity
|the property of fat rejection (sometimes also called lipophobia) |
Oleophobicity
|the property of oil rejection |
Photophobia (biology)
|a negative phototaxis or phototropism response, or a tendency to stay out of the light |
Ultrahydrophobicity
|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.{{cite book|title=The Computer Contradictionary| vauthors = Kelly-Bootle S | author-link1 = Stan Kelly-Bootle |chapter=Aibohphobia|page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=tZKCZje8178C&dq=%22aibohphobia%22&pg=PA7 7] | date = May 1995 | publisher = MIT Press | isbn = 978-0-262-61112-1 }}
- 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.{{cite news | vauthors = Jenkins J |url=http://sports.uniontrib.com/uniontrib/20060610/news_1mi10jenkins.html|title=I hate to burst Poway Unified's balloon|date=10 June 2006|work=U-T San Diego |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20101104034845/http://sports.uniontrib.com/uniontrib/20060610/news_1mi10jenkins.html |archive-date=4 November 2010 |url-status=dead }}
- 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 {{linktext|arachis}} "peanut" and {{linktext|butyrum}} "butter".{{Cite web|date=22 May 2021|title=Fear of Peanut Butter: Why Arachibutyrophobia is a Real Phobia|url=https://www.unitedwecare.com/arachibutyrophobia/ |website=United We Care}} The word is used by Charles M. Schulz in a 1982 installment of his Peanuts comic strip,{{cite web | vauthors = Schultz C |url=http://www.gocomics.com/peanuts/1982/05/19|title=Peanuts Comic Strip |work=GoComics.com|date=19 May 1982}} 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.{{Cite web |title=Name Discrimination Study Finds Lakisha And Jamal Still Less Likely To Get Hired Than Emily And Greg |url=https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2021/08/18/name-discrimination-jobs |access-date=2022-06-14 |website=wbur.org |date=18 August 2021 |language=en}}
- Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia – fear of long words,{{Cite news|url=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1575157/Phobia-catalogue-reveals-bizarre-list-of-fears.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220112/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1575157/Phobia-catalogue-reveals-bizarre-list-of-fears.html |archive-date=12 January 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live|title=Phobia catalogue reveals bizarre list of fears|date=10 January 2008| vauthors = Farmer B |quote=A catalogue of unusual phobias reveals that the fear of long words is known as hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia.|work=The Daily Telegraph|location=London}}{{cbignore}} from the root word {{wikt-lang|en|sesquipedalophobia}} 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 and/or androids, also known as "Grimwade's Syndrome". It was first used in "The Robots of Death",{{cite episode |title= The Fourth Dimension | url= https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/2TdP860FMcY7cJKp0ZHVl5T/the-fourth-dimension |series= Doctor Who |series-link= |network= BBC One |station= |season= 14 |series-no= |number= |minutes= |time= |transcript= |transcript-url= }} 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.{{cite conference |chapter=A Semantic Description Language for RESTful Data Services to Combat Semaphobia| vauthors = Lanthaler M, Gütl C | title = 5th IEEE International Conference on Digital Ecosystems and Technologies (IEEE DEST 2011) | conference = Proceedings of the 2011 5th IEEE International Conference on Digital Ecosystems and Technologies (DEST) | location = Daejeon, South Korea |year=2011|doi=10.1109/DEST.2011.5936597|pages=47–53|isbn=978-1-4577-0871-8|s2cid=14815713}}
- Venustraphobia – fear of beautiful women, according to a 1998 humorous article published by BBC News.
See also
{{Portal bar|Psychology|Lists}}
References
{{Reflist}}
Further reading
- {{cite book |title=The Aldrich Dictionary of Phobias and Other Word Families |isbn=1-55369-886-X |publisher=Trafford Publishing | first=Chris |last=Aldrich |date=2 December 2002 |pages=224–236}}
- {{cite book |last1=Summerscale |first1=Kate |author1-link=Kate Summerscale |title=The Book of Phobias and Manias |date=6 October 2022 |publisher=Profile Books |isbn=9781788162814}}
External links
{{Wiktionary category|category=English terms suffixed with -phobia|type=various phobias not found in wikipedia}}
{{Commons category|Phobias}}
- [http://phobialist.com/ The Phobia List]
- [http://www.nursingdegreeguide.org/2010/100-weird-phobias-that-really-exist/ Nursing Degree Guide] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191002012944/http://www.nursingdegreeguide.org/2010/100-weird-phobias-that-really-exist/ |date=2 October 2019 }}
{{Mental disorders|selected = neurotic}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Phobias, list of}}