trypophobia

English

WOTD – 28 November 2017

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

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

trypophobia (uncountable)

(psychology) An irrational or obsessive fear of irregular patterns or clusters of small holes, such as those found in honeycombs.
- 2013 October, G G. Cole, A 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.

fear of holes

^ “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.