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neophobia

/ˌˈnioʊˌfoʊbiə/
IPA guide

If you suffer from neophobia, you're terrified of new things. Your neophobia might keep you from moving out of your dark, cramped apartment into a new house.

People with neophobia have deep anxiety and fear associated with any experience or thing that's new. If your grandmother seems scared to learn how to use a computer, it may be because of neophobia. The word is often used by biologists who study animals, too: the behavior of certain birds tends to be affected by neophobia. The word itself combines neo, or "new" in Greek, and phobos, or "fear."

Definitions of neophobia
  1. noun
    a morbid fear of novelty
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    type of:
    simple phobia
    any phobia (other than agoraphobia) associated with relatively simple well-defined stimuli
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