adverbophobia
/ˌædˌvɝ.bəˈfoʊ.bi.ə/
adverbophobia noun: an excessive aversion to the use of adverbs, especially in writing literature.
Noun
adverbophobia (uncountable)
- An excessive aversion to the use of adverbs, especially in writing literature.
- For some reason when I compare King to a living Shakespeare people think I'm joking, or that I'm wrong, but I truly believe this. […] Stephen King's biggest fear is adverbs. He irrationally hates them. So much so that the preceding sentence just made him cringe. And I think it makes his work...2016 November 12, SomeGuyNamedTony, “The Dune, and Stephen King's adverbophobia”, in StephenKing.com Message Board
- Adverbophobia / That leads us to the puzzling phenomenon of all the warnings in the how-to-write books. Why do they fear adverbs so much […] Well, it is my duty to warn you that the advice about avoiding adverbs is mistaken, for two rather obvious reasons. The first reason is that you can’t...2024, Geoffrey K. Pullum, The Truth About English Grammar, Polity Press, →ISBN, pages 73-75
Origin of adverbophobia
From adverb + -o- + -phobia. Rare before the 21st century.
Words that rhyme with adverbophobia
- aerophobia
- gerontophobia
- homophobia
- hydrophobia
- -phobia
- agoraphobia
- bathophobia
- Francophobia
- phobia
- radiophobia
- uxorophobia
- xanthophobia
48 more rhymesFewer rhymes
- xenophobia
- ablutophobia
- acephobia
- acousticophobia
- acrophobia
- agraphobia
- aibohphobia
- aichmophobia
- algophobia
- altophobia
- amathophobia
- amaxophobia
- ambulophobia
- androphobia
- anthophobia
- aphobia
- apiphobia
- arachibutyrophobia
- arachnophobia
- astraphobia
- astrophobia
- aviatophobia
- aviophobia
- bacillophobia
- batrachophobia
- botanophobia
- brontophobia
- bryobia
- cacophobia
- cancerphobia
- carcinophobia
- claustrophobia
- clinophobia
- clithrophobia
- coulrophobia
- cynophobia
- decidophobia
- emetophobia
- epistolophobia
- erotophobia
- eurotophobia
- gephyrophobia
- graphophobia
- gymnophobia
- gynophobia
- heliophobia
- hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia
- hippophobia
Questions about adverbophobia
- What does adverbophobia mean?
- Adverbophobia means an excessive aversion to the use of adverbs, especially in writing literature.
- What part of speech is adverbophobia?
- Adverbophobia is a noun.
- How do you pronounce adverbophobia?
- Adverbophobia is pronounced /ˌædˌvɝ.bəˈfoʊ.bi.ə/ (US).
Words near adverbophobia in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: adverbophobia (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-NaomiAmethyst-adverbophobia.wav.
Cite this entry: “adverbophobia.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/adverbophobia. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.