Aibohphobia

//aɪ.bəʊˈfəʊ.bi.ə// noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    An irrational fear of palindromes. humorous, nonce-word, uncountable

    "The article was a disservice to those of us who are unfortunate enough to be afflicted with aibohphobia."

Example

More examples

"Aibohphobia is the fear of palindromes."

Etymology

Deliberately constructed to be a palindrome, combining the suffix -phobia with its reversed spelling. First appeared as a response to National Challenge #36, in a newspaper column written by J Baxter Newgate. The challenge was to invent a phobia. The column did not identify the entrant. (Source: Orlando Sentinel, Oct 22, 1977)

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