phobia

¹ American  

[foh-bee-uh] / ˈfoʊ bi ə /

noun

1. an intense, persistent, irrational fear of a specific object, activity, situation, or person that manifests in physical symptoms such as sweating, trembling, rapid heartbeat, or shortness of breath, and that motivates avoidance behavior.

2. an aversion toward, dislike of, or disrespect for a thing, idea, person, or group.

---

-phobia ² American  

1. a combining form meaning “fear,” occurring in loanwords from Greek (hydrophobia ); on this model, used in the names of anxiety disorders that have the general sense “dread of, aversion toward” that specified by the initial element (agoraphobia ); on the same model, used in words that name hostility toward a thing or idea, or a specific group, with the sense “antipathy toward or dislike of, disrespect or disdain for” the object or people specified by the initial element (technophobia ;xenophobia ).

---

-phobia ¹ British  

combining form

1. indicating an extreme abnormal fear of or aversion to

   acrophobia

   claustrophobia

---

phobia ² British  

/ ˈfəʊbɪə /

noun

1. psychiatry an abnormal intense and irrational fear of a given situation, organism, or object

---

phobia Cultural  

1. An extreme and often unreasonable fear of some object, concept, situation, or person.

---

Usage

What does -phobia mean? The combining form -phobia is used like a suffix meaning “fear.” It is often used in scientific terms, especially in psychology and biology.The form -phobia comes from Greek phóbos, meaning “fear” or “panic.” The Latin translation is timor, “fear,” which is the source of words such as timid and timorous.What are variants of -phobia?While -phobia doesn’t have any variants, it is related to two other combining forms: -phobic and -phobe. Want to know more? Check out our Words that Use articles for each form.

Other Word Forms

• -phobic combining form

Etymology

Origin of phobia¹

First recorded in 1780–90; extracted from nouns ending in -phobia

Origin of -phobia¹

From Latin, from Greek, equivalent to -phob(os) “panic fear” + -ia noun suffix; -phobe, -ia

Example Sentences

In “Doc Martin,” Clunes played a brilliant London surgeon who develops a blood phobia and becomes a general practitioner in the Cornwall fishing village where he spent summers as a child.

From Los Angeles Times

Where Dr. Ellingham remained to a large degree inexplicable — the series expressly refused to diagnose him — Tuccillo has given Dr. Best a quickly revealed childhood trauma to account for his blood phobia and make him more conventionally sympathetic.

From Los Angeles Times

Hope Jezzard's phobia of hospitals was so intense that it seemed inconceivable she would ever work in one.

From BBC

Hospital phobia, or nosocomephobia, is one of a number of recognised anxiety disorders commonly associated with traumatic childhood experiences.

From BBC

At first her hospital phobia made the idea seem impossible but "over time the desire to try and help people trumped my fear," she says.

From BBC

Related Words

• alarm
• anxiety
• aversion
• distaste
• dread
• fear
• fearfulness
• hang-up
• loathing
• obsession
• resentment
• revulsion
• trepidation