acrophobia

/ˈækrəˌfoʊbiə/

Want to go to the top of the Empire State Building? You must not have acrophobia. Someone who is terrified of heights will just wait for you in the gift shop — which is on the ground floor.

You can see the word phobia, or extreme fear, in acrophobia. Acro comes from the Greek word akron, which means "summit" or "high point." When you put it all together, you have a word that means "fear of heights." Whoever named Akron, Ohio, must have studied Greek; it is located on a plateau in Summit County.

Definitions of acrophobia

1. noun

   a morbid fear of great heights
   type of:

   simple phobia

   any phobia (other than agoraphobia) associated with relatively simple well-defined stimuli