coulrophobia
Sep. 12th, 2013 07:36 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
prettygoodwordcoulrophobia (kool-ruh-FOH-bee-uh) - n., an irrational fear of clowns.
A recent coinage, from the 1980s, and used far more in popular culture than in psychology (though it is very much a real thing). The derivation seems to be from kōlobathristēs, a stilt-walker, because supposedly the ancient Greeks didn't have clowns in the modern sense, even though there's the words sklêropaiktês (from paizein, to play (like a child)) and deikeliktas, plus theatrical clowns with a name derived from the word for a peasant. So it goes.
---L.
A recent coinage, from the 1980s, and used far more in popular culture than in psychology (though it is very much a real thing). The derivation seems to be from kōlobathristēs, a stilt-walker, because supposedly the ancient Greeks didn't have clowns in the modern sense, even though there's the words sklêropaiktês (from paizein, to play (like a child)) and deikeliktas, plus theatrical clowns with a name derived from the word for a peasant. So it goes.
---L.
