Teleophobia
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 Reluctance or refusal to ascribe purpose to natural phenomena. uncountable
"In the period from Spinoza to the end of the 19th century, the reading of design into nature received such devastating attacks from naturalists to non-naturalists alike that there developed an epistemological neurosis which Von Baer aptly termed “teleophobia.”"
Example
More examples"In the period from Spinoza to the end of the 19th century, the reading of design into nature received such devastating attacks from naturalists to non-naturalists alike that there developed an epistemological neurosis which Von Baer aptly termed “teleophobia.”"
Etymology
From German Teleophobie in the late 19th century. The OED considers the word modern Latin, but the earliest appearance is in the writing of Karl Ernst von Baer in German in the 1860s. Whatever the immediate source it can be analyzed as teleo- + -phobia, from Ancient Greek τέλος (télos, “purpose”) + -φοβία (-phobía, “-phobia”).
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.