Pedophobia

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    An irrational, obsessive fear or dislike of children. US, rare, uncountable

    "Children embarrass us because they point ever too cleverly and clearly to our denial of personal, material, and maternal history. This accounts, in part, for academia's pedophobia and the hush-hush we maintain about parenting."

  2. 2
    A fear or dislike of pedophiles. US, rare, uncountable

    "That, I find disgraceful, On what grounds? Since when is right and wrong decided by your personal preferences? Pedophiles might accuse you of ‘pedophobia’. After all, there are the likes of philosopher Peter Singer who sees nothing wrong in infanticide or bestiality, yet the academic establishment rewarded these morally perverted views with a personal chair at Princeton."

Synonyms

All synonyms
infantophobiainfantophobiapedophilophobia

Example

More examples

"Children embarrass us because they point ever too cleverly and clearly to our denial of personal, material, and maternal history. This accounts, in part, for academia's pedophobia and the hush-hush we maintain about parenting."

Etymology

Etymology 1

From pedo- (“child”) + -phobia.

Etymology 2

From pedo (“pedophile”) + -phobia.

More for "pedophobia"

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.