Interesting Words And Expressions – Abibliophobia

What exactly is Abibliophobia? It is the fear of running out of reading material.

Origin: Phobia is used both independently and as a suffix to describe an irrational fear of something, and has had increasingly productive use as a suffix in recent years – it seems possible to create an English term for being frightened of almost anything. For instance, many of us have heard of claustrophobia (fear of confined spaces) and agoraphobia(fear of open spaces) but what about e.g. nostophobia (a fear of returning home), or even coulrophobia (fear of clowns)? We also have bibliophobia (an irrational fear of books). Abibliophobia is most likely a made-up form of the latter, using morpheme ‘a’ from the Greek meaning not.

a- “not” + bibli-(on) “book” + o + phob(os) “fear” + ia, a nominal suffix.