Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia
//ˌhɪ.pəˌpɒ.tə(ʊ)ˈmɒn.stɹə(ʊ)ˌsɛs.kwɪ.pɪˌdɑːl.ɪ.ə(ʊ)ˈfəʊ.bɪ.ə// noun
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
Noun
- 1 The fear of long words. humorous, uncountable
"Ben suffers from hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia, so he seldom uses words of more than three syllables."
Example
More examples""Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia is quite a long word, isn't it?" "Yes, but do you know what it means?" "Actually, I don't." "It means fear of long words." "How ironic.""
Etymology
From hippopotomonstrosesquipedalian, in turn an extension of sesquipedalian with ad hoc combining forms of Latin monstrum (“monster”) and hippopotamus (intended to exaggerate the length of the word itself and the idea of the size of the words being feared), + -phobia.
Related phrases
More for "hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.