A.Word.A.Day --ergophobia

A.Word.A.Day

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Dec 18, 2017

This week’s theme
There’s a word for it

This week’s words
ergophobia
breviloquence
exeleutherostomize
corpocracy
obdormition

Detail from “malinger”

Illustration: Leah Palmer Preiss

A.Word.A.Day

with Anu Garg

When I discover a new word (a word new to me, not necessarily a newly coined word), I say to it, “Where have you been all this time? Nice to meet you. And now I have a whole bunch of people I’d like to introduce you to.” That would be all of you.

Make friends with the words this week and then widen the circle by sharing them with others. This week we’ll see words that’d make one say: I didn’t know there was a word for it.

ergophobia

PRONUNCIATION:

(uhr-guh-FO-bee-uh)

MEANING:

noun: An abnormal fear of or aversion to work.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Greek ergon (work) + phobia (fear). Earliest documented use: 1905.

USAGE:

“Bob once had a pal pull diagnosis for ergophobia: nothing current pharmacology could do, prognosis bleak: Life’s hard, you know.”
Jonathan Callahan; The Consummation of Dirk; Starcherone Books; 2013.

“Susan was still unable to work due to her past with the ergophobia.”
S.J. Groves; The Untold; AuthorHouse; 2014.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

We also deem those happy, who from the experience of life, have learned to bear its ills and without descanting on their weight. -Juvenal, poet (c. 60-140)

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