Fear of Open High Places
Aeroacrophobia
Aeroacrophobia is a fear of open, high spaces, and Wiktionary will not carry it: the word sits on its list of unattested phobias. Its entry in the reference literature is four lines long and three of them are a differential diagnosis.
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What the compound actually joins
Aero- gives air and acro- gives height, and both already have phobia words attached to them. Acrophobia is the fear of heights and has a substantial literature. Aerophobia is either a fear of draughts or a fear of flying, depending on the century. Aeroacrophobia is the two glued together, and the encyclopedia of phobias, in its 2008 third edition, defines it as fear of open, high spaces, adding that it includes the fear of being at great heights, such as in an aeroplane.
That last clause is the problem with the term. If it covers being high up in an aircraft, it is not clear what it holds that acrophobia and the fear of flying do not already hold between them.
What the entry is actually good for
The remainder of the entry is a differential, and it is worth having. Aeroacrophobia should be distinguished from airsickness, which the book describes as a vertigo-type disturbance.
That distinction matters more than the word does. Airsickness is a conflict between what the eyes report and what the balance organs report, it produces nausea in people who are not frightened at all, and it responds to different measures. A passenger who is ill on a flight and a passenger who is terrified on a flight present with overlapping symptoms and need different help, and the reference book is right to say so even if the term it says it under is doubtful.
Why Wiktionary refuses the word
There is no Wiktionary entry for aeroacrophobia. The page for it says the term does not meet the criteria for inclusion and points the reader at the list of unattested phobias, which is the page maintained for names that circulate without any recorded use behind them.
That is the same verdict amychophobia received, and it is a meaningful one. Wiktionary admits neologisms readily and requires only durably archived evidence that someone has used the word. For aeroacrophobia it could not find any.
What ranks for the word instead
Searching for the term returns health-content pages built to a template, of the sort Wikipedia's own list of phobias describes as content spamming: a standard article reused for any phobia name, with the name changed and the surrounding text left alone. One such page files aeroacrophobia among categories including:
- nature phobias
- situational phobias
- uncommon phobias
- technology phobias
The same page offers the observation that the fear can hinder a person's ability to experience the joys of flying.
That is what the search results for an unattested phobia name look like. Wikipedia's list of phobias has been describing the practice for years and dates the wider habit of coining these words as a game to a humorous BBC News article published in 1998. This catalogue records the absence of evidence as the entry rather than paraphrasing pages that have none.
Told apart
Often confused with Fear of Open High Places
- Fear of HeightsAcrophobia covers the same object with a real literature behind it, and the sources give nothing that aeroacrophobia holds and acrophobia does not.
- Fear of FlyingThe reference entry says aeroacrophobia includes the fear of being at great heights such as in an aeroplane, which is what the fear of flying already covers.
- AgoraphobiaThe open in open high places points at agoraphobia's object, and the compound does not say which of its two halves is meant to be doing the work.
Common questions
Questions about Aeroacrophobia
- How is it different from acrophobia?
- It is not clear that it is. The reference definition, fear of open high spaces including being at great height in an aeroplane, describes objects that acrophobia and the fear of flying already cover between them. The word is a compound of two roots that each carry a phobia name of their own.
- What is the difference from airsickness?
- Airsickness is a vestibular problem, a conflict between what the eyes and the balance organs report, and it makes people ill who are not frightened. The fear is a fear. The reference entry's insistence on separating them is the most useful thing it contains, because a nauseated passenger and a terrified one look similar and need different help.
- Why does Wiktionary not have the word?
- Because it could not find anybody using it. The page states that the term does not meet the criteria for inclusion, which require durably archived evidence of use, and points the reader to the list of unattested phobias.
- What are the pages that come up for it?
- Templated health content. Wikipedia's list of phobias describes the practice: a standard article reused for any phobia name with the name swapped in, published to attract search traffic. One page for this term files it under categories including Nature Phobias, Uncommon Phobias and Technology Phobias at once.
Added 2026-08-23 · Revised 2026-08-26
Nearby in the catalogue
Related entries
- Fear of HeightsWikipedia gives 2 to 5 per cent and names no survey. What a Dunedin birth cohort found about childhood falls, and why vertigo is the wrong word for it.
- Fear of FlyingAerophobia also names a feature of rabies. Where flight phobia stops being ordinary nerves, and why the prevalence estimates run from 2.5 to 40 per cent.
- AgoraphobiaWestphal coined it in 1871 from agora, the marketplace. The situations it covers include queues, cinemas and being at home alone. What unites them is escape.
- A Surgeon's Fear of OperatingA fear that your own movements will disastrously affect the world around you. For a surgeon that is not a metaphor, which is why the word attached to them.
- ClaustrophobiaRachman and Taylor showed in 1993 that two beliefs drive this fear, and neither is about how small the room is. What the record holds, including the miners.
- Fear of AccidentsDystychiphobia is the fear of accidents, a word that lives in phobia lists rather than in clinics. Its object is a probability, which is why it hides inside other fears.