trypophobia
try·po·pho·bia/ˌtɹɪpəˈfoʊbi.ə/noun
trypophobia is a noun meaning “An irrational or obsessive fear of irregular patterns or clusters of small holes, such as those found in honeycombs” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled T-R-Y-P-O-P-H-O-B-I-A and has 4 syllables (try·po·pho·bia), and it appears about once in every 17 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data).
What does trypophobia mean?
noun
- 1
An irrational or obsessive fear of irregular patterns or clusters of small holes, such as those found in honeycombs.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce trypophobia?
- UK /ˌtɹɪpəˈfəʊbi.ə/
- US /ˌtɹɪpəˈfoʊbi.ə/
Trypophobia has 4 syllables, split try·po·pho·bia in writing.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-trypophobia.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
How common is trypophobia?
Trypophobia appears about once in every 17 million words in written English, the 124,184th 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).
Trypophobia in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense fear of holes:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | trypophobie |
| Portuguese | tripofobia |
| Spanish | tripofobia |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does trypophobia come from?
From Ancient Greek τρῦπα (trûpa, “hole”), compare Ancient Greek τρυπάω (trupáō, “bore”), + -phobia (from Ancient Greek φόβος (phóbos, “fear, phobia”)), said to have been coined by a blogger from Ireland in 2005.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).