Word.ws English Dictionary

gelotophobe

Syllables: ge·lo·to·phobe/ˈd͡ʒɛlətəˌfoʊb/

gelotophobe noun: a person who experiences gelotophobia, one who fears being laughed at.

Noun

gelotophobe (plural gelotophobes)

  1. A person who experiences gelotophobia, one who fears being laughed at.
    • Indeed, the 14 countries (with altogether 3526 participants) studied yielded a noticeable number of gelotophobes. […] Studies showed that gelotophobes misperceive auditorily presented laughter of a positive quality, and consider it […]2008, Victor Raskin, The primer of humor research
    • Gelotophobes have particular problems understanding facial expressions (Ruch and Proyer, 2008a). A smile may be seen as malevolent, even when no more is intended than a warm, happy, expression of positive emotion, as in teasing.2010, Gwyneth Daniel, Utmost Extrication: Why Henry Hellyer Shot Himself, page 53

Forms of gelotophobe

pluralgelotophobes

Questions about gelotophobe

What does gelotophobe mean?
Gelotophobe means a person who experiences gelotophobia, one who fears being laughed at.
What part of speech is gelotophobe?
Gelotophobe is a noun.
How do you pronounce gelotophobe?
Gelotophobe is pronounced /ˈd͡ʒɛlətəˌfoʊb/.
What is the plural of gelotophobe?
The plural of gelotophobe is gelotophobes.

Words near gelotophobe in the dictionary

  1. gelotologist
  2. gelotologists
  3. gelotology
  4. gelotophile
  5. gelotophiles
  6. gelotophobe
  7. gelotophobes
  8. gelotophobia
  9. gelotophobic
  10. gelotophobics
  11. Gelphie

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: gelotophobe (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.

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Cite this entry: “gelotophobe.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/gelotophobe. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.