This week’s theme
Words made by combining forms

This week’s words
neophilia
pyrophobia
arithmomania
zoolatry
cryptogenic

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A.Word.A.Day

PRONUNCIATION:

(py-roh-FOH-bee-uh)

MEANING:

noun: An extreme fear of fire.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Greek pyro- (fire) + -phobia (fear). Earliest documented use: 1858.

USAGE:

“I checked the oven was switched off for the fifth time. ... I suffered pyrophobia but no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t seem to rid myself of it.”
They Said My Fire Fears Were Silly, But My Worst Nightmare Came True; As Told to Joanna Singleton; The Daily Mirror (London, UK); Mar 20, 2007.

“Piero de Cosimo is said to have been ... so pyrophobic that he rarely cooked his food, subsisting mostly on hard-boiled eggs that he prepared 50 at a time while heating glue for his art.”
Carol Vogel; A Renaissance Master, His Quirks and His Art; The New York Times; Jul 25, 2014.

See more usage examples of pyrophobia in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: