Today’s word, paraskavedekatriaphobia, means “fear of Friday the 13th”. It comes from the Greek Παρασκευή (Paraskeví – Friday), δεκατρείς (dekatreís – thirteen) and φοβία (phobía, from φόβος (phóbos) – fear).
An alternative name for this phobia is friggatriskaidekaphobia, which combines frigga (Friday) and triskaidekaphobia (fear of the number thirteen).
haha! whoever comes up with these phobias needs to get a new job 😀
Out of curiosity, what language does the “frigga” root come from? Presumably Germanic, but that combined with greek doesn’t make much sense to me.
Friggatriskaidekaphobia looks like a suspiciously ‘pagan-friendly’ alternative?
Frigg(a) is the norse goddess that friday is named after.
Aibohphobia, anyone? No cheating – don’t go trying to google it!
Jayan – “frigga” comes from Old Norse and is version of the name Frigg, the Norse goddess of love and wife of Odin. Friday is named after her, which is easier to see in the Old English version – frīgedæg.
Frigg, from Common Germanic Frijjō, means “love” and is the root of Sanskrit prīyā́ (wife), the Swedish fria (to propose for marriage) and the Icelandic frjá (to love).
@ Sam – very amusing, never heard of that one before! Another well known phobia albeit by dint of its own ridiculousness is ‘aractibutyrophobia’.
Another example along side the old English version illustrating the point is Faeroese ‘fríggjadagur’.
Ahh… now I think I see where Dutch vrijen ‘make love’ has its roots…
How timely 🙂
You know there are a still a lot of buildings that don’t have 13th flooors? I think they might even still be building them that way…crazy.
August 13th is also the left-handed day, so they say! 🙂
I wonder what they do in it anyway.
By the way, anyone can read devnagari? I have a picture here and I really wish to know what’s written on it. Anyone?
aractibutyrophobia is fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of your mouth. I remembered that when I saw the ‘butyra” 🙂
LOL c’mon guys let’s be serious a bit. Really? They coined such terms for such phobias (that is if they are phobias!)?
I wonder what would they call Monday Phobia (something I do have i guess!)? Deuterophobia?
What about “fear of going to work for fear of having an accident on the way”?
Now THIS, is a real fear for me 🙂
@ Christopher: Yup. See also vriend ‘friend’; i.e., a loved one. Over the centuries, Dutch vrijen has gone through an interesting shift of meanings: originally it meant ‘to love’, then ‘to sue for someone’s hand’, then ‘to cuddle’, and finally (read: nowadays) ‘to have sex.’ Many of the older meanings are still extant in dialectal varieties of Dutch.