ailurophobe

Why this word is great

AILUROPHOBE — [Noun] A person with an irrational fear or hatred of felines. From the Greek ailouros ("cat") + -phobe ("fear or aversion"). Unlike "ailurophile" (who dotes on cats with near-religious devotion) or "cynophobe" (who recoils from dogs alone), the ailurophobe fixates on the feline's uncanny duality—its liquid grace and sudden violence. It is the involuntary flinch at a housecat's silent approach, the shudder at the way its pupils dilate in the dark, or the visceral unease at its purr, which sounds, to them, like the idle revving of a predator's engine. Ailurophobes do not hate cats; they hate the way cats expose the fragility of human dominion.