The Fear of Fear Itself

By Kathleen Rice Adams

It’s Friday the 13th. You may as well walk under ladders, cross paths with black cats, break mirrors, and ignore chain emails with reckless abandon, because today’s an unlucky day anyway.

Nowadays, much of the western world looks at Friday the 13th as a day of bad luck. That hasn’t always been the case. In fact, there is no record of the superstition before the latter half of the 19th Century, and the notion didn’t become widespread until the 20th Century. It still isn’t universal: In Hispanic and Greek cultures, Tuesday the 13th is the day for bad luck. In Italy, it’s Friday the 17th.

Superstitions arise from fear—of an object, a place, a person, an idea… You name it, and there’s probably a related superstition born of someone’s bad experience, coupled with his or her refusal to shut up about it. When a fear becomes so extreme that a person can’t cope, the fear becomes a phobia.

Most people have heard of triskaidekaphobia, or fear of the number 13. Whether they can spell the word is another matter.

Friday the 13th is such a fearsome date, there are two words meaning “fear of Friday the 13th”: friggatriskaidekaphobia and paraskavedekatriaphobia. One is based on a Norse root word; the other on Greek. If you can pronounce either, you’re braver than I.

Sadly, very few phobias have short, easy-to-say names. That, in itself, can provoke a phobia: hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia, or the fear of long words. Seems to me there ought to be a name for fear of the word that means fear of long words.

Is there a word for the fear of fear? Yep: phobophobia. Fortunately, that term is short and fairly simple. Subjecting a phobophobe to hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia would be crueler than necessary. (I really do think there should be a word for the fear of that word—or at least the fear of typing that word.)

There are a ton of phobias (no wonder folks become phobophobic!), but in the interest of preventing pinaciphobia—the fear of lists—I’ll name only a few.

Pteronophobia is the fear of being tickled by feathers. Evidently no one is afraid of being tickled by anything else, because there is no term for a general fear of tickling.

Chromophobia is the fear of bright colors. I’m surprised anyone escaped the psychedelic ’60s without developing this one.

Eisoptrophobia, or the fear of your own reflection, must be especially vexing for narcissists.

Nomophobia is surprisingly common—or maybe not so surprisingly. It’s the fear of losing your cell phone.

Didaskaleinophobia is the fear of going to school. Don’t tell your children.

Both caligynophobia and androphobia are rare in romance novels, thankfully. The former is fear of beautiful women; the latter, fear of men.

Likewise, few characters in romance novels—particularly heroines—suffer erythrophobia, or the fear of blushing.

Another rarity in romance novels is peladophobia, or fear of bald people. It’s difficult to be afraid of something that doesn’t exist.

The flipside of that coin is being afraid of that which does exist. That’s panphobia, or fear of everything.

Pteridophobia is the fear of ferns. Anthophobia is fear of flowers and stems. People who are afraid of all plants are botanophobic. If any of those people take over Congress, the environment’s goose is cooked.

Anatidaephobia is the fear that somewhere in the world, a duck is watching you. No, I did not make that up.

Someone did make up this one, though: luposlipaphobia, or the fear of being pursued by timber wolves around a kitchen table while wearing socks on a newly waxed floor. We can thank Gary Larson, creator of The Far Side, for that one.

What are you afraid of? Tell us in the comments. I’ll bet there’s a word for it.

I wonder if there’s a word meaning fear there’s no term for your phobia...