xenophobia
/ˌzɛn.əˈfəʊ.bɪ.ə/
xenophobia means A fear, antipathy, or hatred of strangers or foreigners. It carries an Arena rating of 1535, earned across 2 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, xenophobia ranks #1,100 of 17,123 for Most Malleable Words, #1,232 of 17,118 for Scariest Words, #2,782 of 17,125 for Most Incisive Words, #3,487 of 17,116 for Words That Escaped Their Books.
xenophobia is pronounced /ˌzɛn.əˈfəʊ.bɪ.ə/.
Why “xenophobia” is a great word
A profound fear, antipathy, or hatred of strangers or those perceived as foreign. From the Greek *xenos* ("stranger, guest, foreign") and *phobos* ("fear"), first attested in English in 1880. Unlike xenophilia, which draws near the unfamiliar with curiosity, or racism, which fixes upon constructed racial categories, xenophobia is a broader, more primal recoil from the alien status of the other. It is the sudden silence at an unfamiliar accent in a crowded pub, the anonymous note slid under a refugee family's door, the neighbor who flinches at a child's laughter in an unknown tongue—the body recoiling from the warmth of a world too wide to hold.
Etymology
From xeno- + -phobia.
noun
- A fear, antipathy, or hatred of strangers or foreigners.
- A fear of aliens.
Words closest in meaning
By meaning, not spelling — each word's AI semantic fingerprint, nearest first.