sociofugal
Syllables: soc·i·o·fug·alUK/ˌsəʊ.si.ə(ʊ)ˈfjuː.ɡl̩/US/ˌsoʊ.si.o(ʊ)ˈfju.ɡ(ə)l/
sociofugal adjective: of a place, etc.: involving the arrangement of a group of people so that each person can maintain some privacy from the others.
Adjective
sociofugal (comparative more sociofugal, superlative most sociofugal)
- Of a place, etc.: involving the arrangement of a group of people so that each person can maintain some privacy from the others.
- By sociofugality I mean a design which prevents or discourages the formation of stable human relationships. […] Sociofugal buildings do not encourage interpersonal relationships and when group relationships occur they are of the shoulder-to-shoulder type found in a crowd or, when modified by...1957 April, Humphry Osmond, “Function as the Basis of Psychiatric Ward Design”, in Daniel Blain, editor, Mental Hospitals, volume 8, number 4, Washington, D.C.: American Psychiatric Association...
- Antonyms:
- sociopetal
Antonyms of sociofugal
Forms of sociofugal
| comparative | more sociofugal |
|---|---|
| superlative | most sociofugal |
Origin of sociofugal
From socio- (prefix meaning ‘society’) + -fugal (suffix meaning ‘travelling out from’), coined by the English psychiatrist Humphry Osmond (1917–2004) in 1957: see the quotation.
Words formed from sociofugal
Words that rhyme with sociofugal
Questions about sociofugal
- What does sociofugal mean?
- Sociofugal means of a place, etc.: involving the arrangement of a group of people so that each person can maintain some privacy from the others.
- What part of speech is sociofugal?
- Sociofugal is an adjective.
- How do you pronounce sociofugal?
- Sociofugal is pronounced /ˌsəʊ.si.ə(ʊ)ˈfjuː.ɡl̩/ (UK).
Words near sociofugal in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: sociofugal (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:
Cite this entry: “sociofugal.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sociofugal. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.