coulrophobia
Dec. 16th, 2024 07:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
prettygoodwordcoulrophobia (kool-ruh-FOH-bee-uh) - n., an abnormal fear of clowns.
This is an online coinage, not used in the psychiatric literature even though the condition is recognized there, dating from around 1990. The etymology is similarly suspect: supposedly (if true, that's a weird consonant shift) built from Ancient Greek kolon, limb, as a gesture to kolobathristes, stilt-walker, as the closest thing to a modern clown in the ancient world (ignoring the existence of sklêro-paiktês, deikeliktas, and geloiastes).
---L.
This is an online coinage, not used in the psychiatric literature even though the condition is recognized there, dating from around 1990. The etymology is similarly suspect: supposedly (if true, that's a weird consonant shift) built from Ancient Greek kolon, limb, as a gesture to kolobathristes, stilt-walker, as the closest thing to a modern clown in the ancient world (ignoring the existence of sklêro-paiktês, deikeliktas, and geloiastes).
---L.
