aibohphobia
Appearance
English
[edit]Etymology
[edit]Deliberately constructed to be a palindrome, combining the suffix -phobia with its reversed spelling.
Appears first as a response to National Challenge #36 - in a newspaper column written by J Baxter Newgate. The challenge was to invent a phobia. The column did not identify the entrant. (Source: Orlando Sentinel, Oct 22, 1977)
Pronunciation
[edit]Noun
[edit]aibohphobia (uncountable)
- (humorous, nonce word) An irrational fear of palindromes.
- 1983, Author unknown, Science Digest, page 103:
- The article was a disservice to those of us who are unfortunate enough to be afflicted with aibohphobia.
- 1997, Richard Lederer, The Word Circus: A Letter-perfect Book, page 60:
- We trust that we've relieved any Aibohphobia, any fear of palindromes that you might have harbored.
- 2004, Peter Seddon, Football Talk: The Language and Folklore of the World's Greatest Game, page 267:
- If you suffer from aibohphobia (fear of palindromes) you should skip a few pages while the rest of us go in search of […]
- 2006 Feb, NewScientist, page 56, column 3:
- We hope, however, that in passing this on we don't provoke any attacks of aibohphobia among our readers. This pallindrome, as Alan Lane discovered, means "an abnormal and persistent fear of pallindromes".
Antonyms
[edit]Categories:
- English 5-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- English terms with audio pronunciation
- Rhymes:English/əʊbiə
- Rhymes:English/əʊbiə/5 syllables
- English lemmas
- English nouns
- English uncountable nouns
- English palindromes
- English humorous terms
- English nonce terms
- English terms with quotations
- English terms suffixed with -phobia