Meanings
alternative katagelophobia
- uncountableFear of being ridiculed
1 more example
In response to the other July/August request, for a word to describe a "fear of inadvertently throwing something valuable out with the garbage," many, many phobias arrived. Evidently the readers who sent them in suffer from neither doxophobia (fear of expressing opinions) nor neophobia (fear of anything new or novel), and some would even seem to be remarkably free of catagelophobia (fear of being ridiculed).
2001 December, Barbara Wallraff, “Word Fugitives”, in The Atlantic Monthly
Origin
- Ancient Greekκᾰτᾰγελᾰ́ω“to ridicule, mock, jeer”
- Englishcatagelophobia
Learned borrowing from Ancient Greek κᾰτᾰγελᾰ́ω (kătăgelắō, “to ridicule, mock, jeer”) + -phobia
More words from Ancient Greek
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
catagelophobia. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/catagelophobia
“catagelophobia.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/catagelophobia. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “catagelophobia,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/catagelophobia.
Source: catagelophobia on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.