There’s a Word for It: Five Flabbergasting Phobias

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Happy Halloween 2025! You may be trick-or-treating this year, attending a costume party or hiding at home with the lights off. But are you familiar with these phobias, and their origins?


Unusual phobias: James Hutchinson + AI

  • coulrophobia, mass noun: an extreme fear of clowns. The word’s origins are uncertain, although the Online Etymology Dictionary suggests that the prefix coulro- may be related to kōlobatheron ('stilt') in Greek.
  • cyberphobia, noun: an extreme fear of computers or technology; cyber- is a back-formation from cybernetics.
  • hexakosioihexekontahexapbobia, noun: the intense fear of the number 666 (known to Christians as ‘the number of the beast’, in reference to the Book of Revelation). However, the oldest surviving copy of the text actually gives the number as 616. See The Other Number of the Beast: 616.
  • pantophobia, noun: a fear of everything, or generalised anxiety. From pantos (‘all’) in Greek, and dating back to the 19th century. Originally an alternative term for rabies, it was noted as a specific monomania in medical journals dating from 1848.
  • pogonophobia, noun: extreme dislike of beards. Formed using the Greek word pōgōn (‘beard’). Unfortunately for people who experience this particular phobia, Movember starts tomorrow!

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