'A phobia of high places.'
The word phobia means 'fear' or 'dislike'. Like many medical words used in English it comes from Greek. Phobos was the Greek god of fear. Today his name is used to show a fear.
In English we can say:
'I have a fear of high places.'
or
'I have a phobia of high places.'
The medical term for a fear of high places:
'I have acrophobia.' (Acrophobia is the noun)
'I am acrophobic.' (Acrophobic is the adjective)
Acro means 'summit' in Greek and phobia, as we know, means 'fear'.
Note: Vertigo is often used in relationship to this fear. Vertigo is the dizzy, spinning feeling people sometimes get when they are in high places.
'I suffer from Vertigo.'
A fear of water
'He won't go swimming because of his aquaphobia.'
A fear of wide, open spaces
'She doesn't like walking in the countryside because she has agoraphobia.'
A fear of spiders
'I can't go into the bathroom until someone kills that spider. I have arachnophobia.'
A fear of small spaces
'I can't take the lift because I am claustrophobic.'
Usually used as a dislike of gay people
'I think that homophobic people are small-minded.'
It seems that there is a medical term for a fear of nearly everything. Just for fun, here are five genuine medical phobias:
Chaetophobia: The fear of hair!
Numerophobia: The fear of numbers!
Bibliophobia: The fear of books!
Selenophobia: The fear of the moon!
Somniphobia: The fear of sleep!
Link: Adverbs and Adjectives
Do you have a phobia? Tell us about it!
