xenophobic
/ˌzɛn.əˈfəʊ.bɪk/
xenophobic means exhibiting or characterised by xenophobia, a fear or hatred of strangers, foreigners, or extraterrestial life. It carries an Arena rating of 1378, earned across 45 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, xenophobic ranks #2,818 of 17,138 for Most Incisive Words, #3,923 of 17,135 for Most Malleable Words, #4,280 of 17,131 for Scariest Words, #5,383 of 17,127 for Words That Escaped Their Books.
xenophobic is pronounced /ˌzɛn.əˈfəʊ.bɪk/.
Why “xenophobic” is a great word
XENOPHOBIC — [Adjective] Exhibiting or characterized by a fear or hatred of strangers or foreigners. From the Ancient Greek ξένος (xénos, "foreign, strange") + φόβος (phóbos, "fear"). The adjective form is attested by 1904. Unlike "nationalistic," which may rest on a contained loyalty, or "misanthropic," which denotes a general disgust for humanity, xenophobic is a precise, targeted dread of the other. It is the averted gaze on a crowded train, the policy drafted behind a wall, and the border drawn not on a map but in the mind—a learned reflex that mistakes the map for the territory, and the foreign for a fatal breach.
Etymology
From xeno- + -phobic, from Ancient Greek ξένος (xénos, “foreign, strange”) + φόβος (phóbos, “fear”).
adj
- Exhibiting or characterised by xenophobia, a fear or hatred of strangers, foreigners, or extraterrestial life.e.g.“Residents of Plettenberg Bay this week launched violent xenophobic attacks on foreign Africans living in informal settlements, beating them and ransacking their houses” — 2006 May 13, Weekend Argus:
noun
- A xenophobe.e.g.“So Buzz Bissinger sees fit that we give up on the ideal of Olympism and give in to xenophobics, terrorists, drug abusers, profiteers and human rights abusers?” — 2008 April 16, Martin J. Brown, “Don’t Give Up on the Games, or Olympic Ideals”, in The New York Times:
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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