What is "coulrophobia"

"morbid fear of clowns," by 2001 (said in Web sites to date from 1990s or even 1980s), a popular term, not from psychology, possibly facetious, though the phenomenon is real enough; said to be built from Greek kolon "limb," with some supposed sense of "stilt-walker," hence "clown" + -phobia.\n

\nAncient Greek words for "clown" were sklêro-paiktês, from paizein "to play (like a child);" or deikeliktas; other classical words used for theatrical clowns were related to "rustic," "peasant" (compare Latin fossor "clown," literally "laborer, digger," related to fossil).\n

\nThe whole creation looks suspiciously like the sort of thing idle pseudo-intellectuals invent on the Internet and which every smarty-pants takes up thereafter; perhaps it is a mangling of Modern Greek klooun "clown," which is the English word borrowed into Greek.

n. The irrational fear of clowns.

A specific fear of clowns has sometimes been discussed in terms of a specific phobia. The term coulrophobia is a neologism coined in the context of informal " -phobia lists".

The term is not listed in the World Health Organisation's ICD-10 nor in the American Psychiatric Association's DSM-5 categorisation of disorders.