phobo-, phob-, -phobia, -phobias, -phobe, -phobiac, -phobist, -phobic, -phobism, -phobous

(Greek: fear, extreme fear of; morbid, excessive, irrational fear, or terror of something or someone; however, sometimes this Greek element also means a strong dislike, dread, or hatred for something or someone)


For more details about the various phobias, visit this Phobias Introduction page to see Phobia Variations Defined and Explained.

There are only two forces that unite men: fear and self-interest.

—Napoleon Bonparte
eurotophobia (s) (noun) (no plural)
An abnormal apprehension of female genitals which may have an adverse affect on both women and men: Such people suffering from eurotophobia usually have such symptoms as anxiety, inhibition, and are unable to enter into a romantic relationship.
failure phobia (s) (noun), failure phobias (pl)
A fear of any event, outcome, or situation that resembles or relates to an inadequacy of positive results: People who are suffering from a lack of success, or failure phobia, will do everything possible to avoid such shortcomings.

Failure phobias are generally caused by some influences of unproductive efforts that have resulted from prior situations which had occurred in people's lives that may have happened during childhood, marriage, special projects that were not accomplished, incapability of success in occupational endeavors, etc.

febriphobia, fibriphobia, fibriophobia (s) (noun) (no plural)
An excessive anxiety of having a fever: Whenever little Tommy got sick and had a high temperature, he was terribly frightened and panicked, and the family doctor said he had febriphobia.
felinophobia, gatophobia (s) (noun) (no pl)
An abnormal hatred of felids: Steven's felinophobia sometimes handicaps him and he is unable to go outside his home for fear of encountering any kind of cat.

Shirley had gatophobia and was quite afraid to go to the neighbors to visit because their cat always wanted to jump up on her lap and be petted.

A postal woman is attempting to deliver mail to a house as a cat watches her approach.

Cat attacks postal woman.
Word Info image © ALL rights reserved.

The scenes shown here represent an actual attack by a cat on a postal-delivery woman in Germany whenever she tried to deliver the mail. According to a German TV presentation, the cat would attack the postal-woman when she tried to deliver mail to the house. Did the cat resent an invasion of its territory or did it simply have an abnormal hatred of uniforms?

Whatever the reason for the feline's behavior, its owner had to pick up his mail at a neighborhood bar because he refused to restrict the freedom of his cat to come and go whenever it desired.

feminophobia (s) (noun) (no plural)
An abnormal or intense fear of women: Because of his childhood memories regarding his mother, Timothy developed a feminophobia because of her terrible, irrational, and unpredictive behaviour and he thought that all females were like her.
femiphobia (s) (noun) (no plural)
An irrational dread, or obsession, that a man has of being considered feminine or of being accused of displaying the characteristics of a woman: Being quite affected with femiphobia, Jack always wanted to have real male-attributes, and never to be confused with any female traits, so he had very short hair, wore a beard and a mustache, and talked in a very low voice.
femiphobic (adjective), more femiphobic, most femiphobic
Relating to a man's anxiety of being like a woman in some way: Doug, having femiphobic concerns about his masculinity, spent his time by building up his muscles in the fitness studio, wearing a beard, showing his dominance, and controlling others, especially those in his family.
formiphobia (s) (noun), formiphobias (pl)
A morbid fear of ants: After having such bad experiences of being bitten, Jessie seemed to have developed a formiphobia and always avoided anyplace where she saw such social insects living in organised communities or colonies.
Francophobia, Gallophobia (s) (noun) (no plural)
A phenomenon displaying a strong dislike or hatred of France or things which are French: Not only does Francophobia relate to France in general, but also to the French people, the French language, the French customs, the French mentality, etc.
friendorphobia
A dread and anxiety of not remembering a password: Jane was often told by her friends not to forget the word or phase she created to enter her accounts, and because she was so terribly afraid of losing them, she developed a friendorphobia, and hid all of her secret terms and keywords in places no one knew about!
frigophobia (s) (noun) (no plural)
An extreme anxiety of being cold or freezing: People who are afflicted with frigophobia put on layers of very warm clothing and even blankets, regardless of the temperature indicated at the place where they are.
fumimania, fumimaniac; fumiphobia, fumiphobiac: created by John G. Robertson
The terms, capnomania, fumimania are all coined terms that mean "obsessive or uncontrollable desires or habits of smoking one or more tobacco products" (especially cigarettes, but they may include cigars, pipes, etc.) all of which also can be defined as "tobacco addictions".

They were coined by John G. Robertson in 2002 for his book: An Excess of Phobias and Manias, published in 2003, because they were unavailable in any dictionaries or other known sources to express these conditions.

The terms capno- comes from Greek and fumi- comes from Latin; both of which refer to various kinds of "smoke" or "fumes".

See the pages at this Capnomania-Fumimania, Part 1 for the poem, "The Ballad of Salvation Bill" and other pages about the problems of smoking from the past to the present.

You may see similar words (capnomania, capnomaniac, capnophobia, capnophobiac) which were also created by John Robertson at this capno- unit of words.

fumiphobia (s) (noun), fumiphobias (pl)
An intense hatred of smoking or having anyone around who is polluting the air in the immediate vicinity with tobacco smoke: Being afflicted with a fumiphobia, Mrs. Clean didn't allow her friends or acquaintances to enter her house if they were puffing on cigarettes, cigars, or pipes, and she didn't go to any restaurants or cafés where this was allowed.

See the pages at this Capnophobia-Fumiphobia, Part 1 for pages about the smoking problems in our global societies.

fumiphobiac (s) (noun), fumiphobiacs (pl)
A person who has a hatred or fear of being around others who smoke tobacco products: Mr. Straight, a fumiphobiac, couldn't stand individuals who polluted the air with using cigarettes, cigars, or pipes, etc., and thought that they could not control themselves and had no regard for others.
A man has fumiphobia.
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galeophobia (s) (noun) (no pl)
1. An intense dread of cats, including polecats, skunks, and weasels: Katherine's galeophobia was extreme because she was afraid to even walk in the garden for fear of seeing or hearing a cat there.
2. An abnormally persistent horror of sharks: Those who have galeophobia experience anxiety even though they may be safe on a boat, on a ship, or on a beach.
3. Etymology: derived from the Greek words galeos, "shark with markings resembling those on a weasel" and phobos, "fear".

Galeophobia is also used as an alternate term for a "fear of cats", because the Greek word galeos is derived from galee, a Greek element meaning "polecat" and "weasel".