snakephobia
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Forms: form: snake-phobia
Etymology: From snake + -phobia.
Senses: examples: text: His mother “never could abide” the serpent; its Freischutzian tones were unearthly in the old lady’s ears, and seemed to fret her bowels into fiddle strings, and positively turn her inside out, as the old lady declared just before her death, which occurrence was doubtless hastened by the violence of her snakephobia.
ref: 1839 October, William E[vans] Burton, “Mister Richard Doddicombe”, in Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine and American Monthly Review, volume V, number IV, Philadelphia, Pa., page 176:
text: Death from Snakephobia.—The Tampa Peninsular (Fla.) of the 19th ult. says that Mrs. Sealy, of that vicinity, died under the following extraordinary circumstances:—About two weeks previous to her death, a small garter snake made its way through the floor of the residence and wrapped itself around the ankle of the unfortune woman, who was frightened into spasms.
ref: 1858 January 4, The Sun, volume LXII, number 44, Baltimore, Md.:
text: One may say that snakephobia is common to all human beings, and Charles Darwin has described most impressively how he was unable to control his fear of a snake pointing for him, though he knew he was separated from it by a thick pane of glass.
ref: 1920, G. Stanley Hall, transl., A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis, New York, N.Y.: Horace Liveright, translation of original by Sigmund Freud, page 345:
text: Women are traditionally hysterical in the presence of members of the reptile kingdom. To reconcile Eve to the snake—that was the problem. In vain did the promoters of the new fad invoke plausible arguments. From one stage door to another went the emissaries of the reptile hide plungers, imploring the help of one after the other of the Paris footlight beauties. Everywhere they met with the same unreasonable snakephobia, distinguishing characteristic of femininity.
ref: 1928 July 8, “Lizards and Snakes for Gowns, Gloves and Automobile Cushions; Eight Thousand Java Lizards Trapped in the Island Jungle, and Many Others From India and Persia, to Upholster One Paris Motor-Car”, in The Sunday Sun-Telegraph, volume 2, number 156, Pittsburgh, Pa.:
text: One person may have snakephobia, another ratphobia ,and still another may have ghostphobia. In fact, it is possible to develop a phobia about almost any thing.
ref: 1946 June 26, Arlie B. Davidson, “Living Today”, in The Montgomery Advertiser, 118th year, number 177, Montgomery, Ala., page four:
text: He had evidently heard my name called out when I was given my “money declaration,” for he said, ‘You Irish do not like snakes.’ I agreed with him and told him that St. Patrick had driven the snakes from Ireland and I wished he had chased them out of a few other countries. “Upon that I asked him to join me in a little anti-snake poison. At the station estaminet (bar) we had a few brandies and completely forgot the snakephobia.”
ref: 1953 December 11, “Localite Writes of Adventure in Spain”, in San Francisco Examiner, volume CLXXXXIX, number 164, San Francisco, Calif., page 20:
text: If the shocker had even one ounce of Irish blood in his heat-withered veins, he was doubly wretched over the never-ending possibilities of grabbing a snake at the same time he seized a bundle of grain. The ounce of Irish snakephobia showed up at times in those who spoke with a Teutonic accent, like the middle-aged shocker, who enthusiastically shovel-passed a bundle and explained the record heave thus: “It used to make mine heart go pitty-pat to hug the girls—but,” exploding a couple of words beginning with Y and C, “to hug a tamn snake! ! ! ! ”
ref: 1955 July 4, Chick Hartley, “Impressions… Artist’s Conception of Harvest Out-Dated”, in Keith County News, seventieth year, number 53, Ogallala, Neb., page 8:
text: Unfortunately, say Millerton rangers, many harmless snakes suffer death because people can not recognize one snake from another or because of “snakephobia,” which case any snake is only a good snake when it’s a dead snake.
ref: 1971 June 20, Jim Forbes, “Snakes? Not As Many As Some Claim”, in The Fresno Bee, volume 98, number 17569, Fresno, Calif., page B8:
text: Huber, working on a doctorate in psychology at the University of Florida, said most of his 260 student volunteers overcame their “snakephobia” after his tests using a tame boa constrictor named Chelsea.
ref: 1980 July 8, “‘Snakephobiac’ Helps Others Conquer Fear”, in The Pensacola News, 92nd year, number 133, Pensacola, Fla., page 3A:
glosses: Fear of snakes.
Synonyms: ophidiophobia
ophiophobia
snake fear
snake-fright