Fobo

noun, slang

noun, slang ·Uncommon ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Initialism of fear of a better option. abbreviation, alt-of, initialism, slang, uncountable

    "The whole thing actually started with FOBO, or Fear of a Better Option. It was the term I came up with to explain the fact that everyone I knew at school was always looking for something better."

  2. 2
    Initialism of fear of bad outcomes. abbreviation, alt-of, initialism, rare, uncountable

    "I have since adopted this strategy for myself to defuse FOBO. “Wouldn't it be nice if my presentation today went well!”"

Example

More examples

"The whole thing actually started with FOBO, or Fear of a Better Option. It was the term I came up with to explain the fact that everyone I knew at school was always looking for something better."

More for "fobo"

SynonymsSentencesPronunciationTranslate

Next best steps

Find stronger synonymsSee usage examplesCheck pronunciationBrowse writing guides

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.