Sciency Words: Weird Phobias

Today’s post is part of a special series here on Planet Pailly called Sciency Words.  Every Friday, I bring you a new and interesting scientific word to help us all expand our scientific vocabularies.  Today’s word is:

PHOBIA

I think we all have our own little, irrational fears.  I’m terrified of blood.  I once fainted in a biology class because we were talking about blood.  I think it was something about blood cells squeezing through capillaries in single file that set me off.

I recently spent some time researching various phobias for a writing project and learned that the technical term for my irrational fear is hemophobia.  Here are a few other interesting phobias.

• Pupaphobia: the fear of puppets.
• Aibohphobia: the fear of palindromes (it’s funny because aibohphobia is itself a palindrome).
• Omphalophobia: the fear of belly buttons.
• Hellenologophobia: fear of the ancient Latin and Greek languages, or fear of scientific terminology (if you are hellenologophobic, you probably shouldn’t be reading this blog).
• Sesquipedalophobia: fear of long words.
• Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia: fear of the number 666.

So what’s your biggest phobia?  Do they have a technical term for it?  Have you ever managed to overcome your fear?  Please share in the comments below.