FOMO
/ˈfoʊmoʊ/noun, verb
FOMO is a noun meaning “Acronym of fear of missing out” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled F-O-M-O, and it appears about once in every 3 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data).
What does FOMO mean?
noun
- 1
Acronym of fear of missing out.
verb
- 1
To experience FOMO (“the fear of missing out”); to act on one's FOMO, often impulsively [(often) with into].
noun
- 1
Alternative form of FOMO.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce FOMO?
- US /ˈfoʊmoʊ/
- UK /ˈfəʊməʊ/
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-FOMO.oga, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of FOMO
- FoMO
- FOMOs present, singular, he/she/it
- FOMOing participle, present
- FOMO-ing participle, present
- FOMOed participle, past
- FOMO'd participle, past
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is FOMO?
FOMO appears about once in every 3 million words in written English, the 49,949th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Where does FOMO come from?
Coined c. 2004 in the US by Patrick James McGinnis, in the same article as FOBO.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).