This week’s theme
No el

This week’s words
skewgee
banjax
surquedry
zoophobia
mundificative

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A.Word.A.Day

PRONUNCIATION:

(zo-uh-FOH-bee-uh)

MEANING:

noun:
1. An unusual fear of animals.
2. A dislike of keeping animals in captivity.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Greek zoo- (animal) + -phobia (fear). Earliest documented use: 1888. Some related words are zoonosis (a disease transmitted from animals to humans) and zoophyte (an animal resembling a plant).

NOTES:

Some examples of zoophobia are acarophobia (insects), ailurophobia (cats), arachnophobia (spiders), and cynophobia (dogs).

USAGE:

“You see something in the form of a spider and you recoil from it without thinking. You don’t stop to think that a spider is nature’s creation. You don’t see the beauty in it. Instead, your thinking is dominated by a visceral revulsion. Look at all the derogatory terms in your language derived from other species. Rat. Snake. Dog. Worm. The list goes on and on. These are nature’s creatures, yet you can’t help but denigrate them, reducing them to the level of insults. Zoophobia is endemic in mankind as much as racism.”
Nathan Kuzack; Holohive; Nathan Kuzack; 2019.

“Chris McGimpsey compared the local Bellevue Zoo to a ‘Victorian peep show’ where we ‘gawk at animals through the bars’. Some go further yet, likening zoos to slavery and colonialism, an exploitative format that is in its swansong. All this zoophobia shows a growing disquiet towards the use of animal captivity as entertainment.”
Oliver Bennett; Can Zoos Be Redesigned for a More Ethical Generation?; The Independent (London, UK); Aug 26, 2018.

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

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: