monophobia

monophobia means A fear of being alone. It carries an Arena rating of 1457, earned across 28 head-to-head judged battles.

Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, monophobia ranks #547 of 13,217 for Most Incisive Words, #2,464 of 13,217 for Most Malleable Words, #3,133 of 13,217 for Most Elegant Words, #3,933 of 13,217 for Words That Escaped Their Books.

Why “monophobia” is a great word

A morbid dread of being left alone, of absolute solitude. From the combining form mono- (from Greek μόνος, "single, alone") and -phobia (from Greek -φοβία, "fear"). First recorded in English 1880–85. Unlike agoraphobia, which fears inescapable crowds, or autophobia, which denotes a dread of oneself, monophobia is the terror of the empty room. It is the panic that rises with the silence after a door clicks shut, the visceral need for a voice on the other end of a telephone line, and the profound unease at the prospect of an unshared evening; it is the physical conviction that existence without witness is a slow unraveling into nothing.

Etymology

From mono- + -phobia.

noun

A fear of being alone.
Any phobia relating to a single specific thing, such as spiders or heights.

Words closest in meaning

By meaning, not spelling — each word's AI semantic fingerprint, nearest first.

autophobia 93% match — The morbid fear of being alone or of oneself. vs monophobia →
eremophobia 92% match — fear of solitude vs monophobia →
phobophobia 87% match — The fear of fear; the fear of developing a phobia. vs monophobia →
panophobia 87% match — A condition of groundless fears. vs monophobia →
ochlophobia 87% match — A phobia, or fear, of mob-like crowds, as opposed to simply open spaces like agoraphobia or large crowds as with enochlophobia. vs monophobia →
eleutherophobia 86% match — Fear of freedom. vs monophobia →
athazagoraphobia 86% match — The fear of being forgotten or ignored. vs monophobia →
claustrophobia 86% match — The abnormal fear of closed, tight places. vs monophobia →