I know that there are several words that end in "phobia" but does anybody know exactly how many are there?
2007-08-02 09:00:29 · 10 answers · asked by Anonymous in Education & Reference ➔ Words & Wordplay
As others have said, since you can be afraid of ANYTHING, you could create a "- PHOBIA" word for anything
But here are some of the "classics" you might find in any dictionary (followed by what the fear is of):
acrophobia (heights)
agoraphobia (open spaces)
ailurophobia (cats)
arachnophoba (spiders)
claustrophobia (small, confined spaces)
triskaidekaphobia (the number 13, often esp of Friday the 13th)
xenophobia (foreigners, strangers)
hydrophobia (literally 'fear of water', an older term for rabies, since people and animals suffering from it have difficulty swallowing water.. and so avoid it [they do not actually fear it])**
**see the "Our Living Language" note at:
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/hydrophobia
AND the one everyone (I hope!) remembers from "A Charlie Brown Christmas" -
"pantophobia" - the fear of EVERYTHING!
And here's a list of 844 (ignoring the first two entries which are just "phobia" and "-phobia". .. also beware since some in the list are just alternate forms of others)
http://www.onelook.com/?w=*phobia&ls=a
Again, new ones are being created all the time. The general rule USED to be that the first part of the word had to be a Greek form, (ust as "phobia" is), but there are now many exceptions to that rule.
Anyway, you've probably heard at least one of these more recent additions to the list:
computerphobia
homophobia
technophobia
2007-08-02 14:24:58 · answer #1 · answered by bruhaha 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Anything that a person can be afraid of can become a "phobia". Since nothing is weirder than folk the suffix can be attached to any word in the English language. That's the magic of our language, if the word doesn't exist then we can create it.
2007-08-02 09:43:28 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
I'd like to count them, but I have a horror of the foreign words ending in 'phobia', as I am a well-known xenophobic!
2007-08-02 09:13:23 · answer #3 · answered by ? 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Dislike or refusal of something - there are thousands of words ending in 'phobia'.
2007-08-02 09:11:13 · answer #4 · answered by upyerjumper 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Coop, Stoop, Hoop, Whoop, Pop, Clop, Plop, Stop, Top, Hop, Loop, Mop, Cop...
2016-04-01 12:28:59 · answer #5 · answered by Sylvia 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Far too many to list.
2007-08-02 09:06:13 · answer #6 · answered by taxed till i die,and then some. 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
None: they are all the same word just with diferent beginnings.
don't mind me, I'm drinking......
2007-08-02 10:07:50 · answer #7 · answered by steve h 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
a lot......i am too lazy to count them all
2007-08-02 09:35:27 · answer #8 · answered by Babygirl 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I don't know , I'm too scared to look!!!!
Hahaha!!!
.
2007-08-02 09:04:59 · answer #9 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
many, many thousands....
2007-08-02 09:04:41 · answer #10 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋