Word.ws English Dictionary

nucleomitophobia

nucleomitophobia noun: fear of nuclear radiation, now especially atomic bombs.

Noun

nucleomitophobia (uncountable)

  1. Fear of nuclear radiation, now especially atomic bombs.
    • Nikita Krushchev's war of nerves was plainly having an effect on the U.S. citizenry... There were the usual neurotics. In Chicago, public officials received a spate of calls from women complaining that their hair curlers were radioactive, from men suspicious of the olives in their martinis....1961 September 29, “The People: Ready to Act”, in Time
    • A physician says the Nuclear Age has spawned a new phobia—nucleomitophobia, or fear of the atom. An article in Today's Health, a magazine published by the American Medical Assn., said public officials have received a rash of calls from persons who believe they are radioactive.1961 November 19, Cedar Rapids Gazette, page 122

Examples of nucleomitophobia in a sentence

  • Dushkin named the ailment "nucleomitophobia"—fear of the atom).1961 September 29, “The People: Ready to Act”, in Time:
  • Disenchantment and nucleomitophobia (an exaggerated fear of atomic Armageddon) cause him to drop out.1988, Brian Stableford, "American Book of the Dead", Fiction & Fantasy Book Review Annual
  • Fear of nuclear weapons is known as nucleomitophobia.2008, Ronald M. Doctor & al., The Encyclopedia of Phobias, Fears, and Anxieties, 3rd ed., s.v. "nuclear war and nuclear weapons"

Forms of nucleomitophobia

alternative misspellingnucleomituphobia

Origin of nucleomitophobia

Coined by psychiatrist Milton Arnold Dushkin in the early 1960s, from nucleo- (“atomic nucleus”) + mito- (“mitosis”) + -phobia (“fear of”), in reference to a supposed resemblance of atomic fission to cellular division.

Questions about nucleomitophobia

What does nucleomitophobia mean?
Nucleomitophobia means fear of nuclear radiation, now especially atomic bombs.
How do you use nucleomitophobia in a sentence?
Dushkin named the ailment "nucleomitophobia"—fear of the atom).
What part of speech is nucleomitophobia?
Nucleomitophobia is a noun.

Words near nucleomitophobia in the dictionary

  1. nucleome
  2. nucleomegaly
  3. nucleomes
  4. nucleometallation
  5. nucleometallations
  6. nucleomitophobia
  7. nucleomituphobia
  8. nucleomodulin
  9. nucleomodulins
  10. nucleomorph
  11. nucleomorphs

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: nucleomitophobia (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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