trypophobia

English

WOTD – 28 November 2017

Etymology

From Ancient Greek τρῦπα (trûpa, hole) + -phobia (from Ancient Greek φόβος (phóbos, fear, phobia)), said to have been coined by a blogger from Ireland in 2005.[1]

Pronunciation

  • (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ˌtɹɪpəˈfəʊbi.ə/
    • (file)
  • (General American) enPR: trĭ'pə-fōʹbē-ə, IPA(key): /ˌtɹɪpəˈfoʊbi.ə/
  • Rhymes: -əʊbiə
  • Hyphenation: try‧po‧pho‧bia

Noun

trypophobia (uncountable)

  1. (psychology) An irrational or obsessive fear of irregular patterns or clusters of small holes, such as those found in honeycombs. [from 2005]
    • 2013 October, G[eoff] G. Cole, A[rnold] J. Wilkins, “Fear of Holes”, in Psychological science, volume 24, number 10, →DOI, →PMID, pages 1980–1985:
      Images of lotus seed heads are often reported as inducing trypophobia. Sufferers of trypophobia report that it is the visual percept that is particularly aversive.
    • 2015, Irena Milosevic, Trypophobia (Fear of Holes), Irena Milosevic, Randi E. McCabe (editors), Phobias: The Psychology of Irrational Fear, ABC-CLIO (Greenwood), page 401,
      In particular, individuals with trypophobia are fearful of clusters of holes that are found in a variety of objects and matter such as skin, coral, honeycombs, seed pods, and even aerated chocolate.

Translations

See also

References

  1. “Louise” (2005 May 23) “Trypophobia”, in A Phobia of Holes, Yahoo! GeoCities, archived from the original on 16 March 2009: see Jennifer Abbasi (2011 July 26) “Is Trypophobia a Real Phobia?: We Investigate the Fear of Creepy Clustered Holes”, in Popular Science, archived from the original on 12 September 2017.

Further reading

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