Aerophobia is the fear of flying, acrophobia of high places; agoraphobia is the fear of open places as opposed to claustrophobia which is the fear of closed spaces. People with algophobia are greatly afraid of pain. Those who have a mortal fear of storms, thunder and lightning have astraphobia. Fear of dogs is cynophobia whereas fear of cats is ailurophobia and fear of animals in general is zoophobia.
A person who has an abnormal fear of being alone has monophobia; on the other hand, fear of crowds is ochlophobia. There are people with such an intense fear of water that they won’t go near the sea or the ocean. They have aquaphobia and those with an extraordinary fear of fire have pyrophobia. How many times have we heard people say, “I can’t stand the sight of blood!” Some even faint. These suffer from haematophobia.
Parents insist that children wash their hands often to kill germs. Doctors advise people to keep their hands clean to ward off infection. When fear of contamination and germs becomes excessive, it is called mysophobia. If fear of intensive light is photophobia, nyctophobia is the fear of darkness.
Now let’s look at a few manias. Bibliomania is a great fondness for owning books. Cheromania is an inordinate love of gaiety. Doramania is a craze for fur. Kleptomania is the compulsion to steal. Megalomania is love of power and riches. People who can’t help the desire to run away suffer from drapetomania. Those who greatly love insects have entomomania and those who love plants to distraction have florimania. (How I wish this was contagious! It would save our trees!)
All those people who are mad about travelling have hodomania and the those who are abnormal sun lovers have heliomania. How often have we come across non-stop talkers? Their love of talking is because they have lalomania. Very often, people feel the need for noise and are fond of high decibels. These have phonomania. Quite a few of us are obsessed with hair, wanting long and luxuriant hair, black and beautiful. We have trichomania.
It is interesting to note that some words take both phobia and mania as suffixes. Here are a few examples: zoophobia and zoomania, agoraphobia and agoramania, aquaphobia and aquamania, ailurophobia and ailuromania, pyromania and pyrophobia.
You could try adding to the list of all three groups.
