Fear of Relatives
Syngenesophobia
Syngenesophobia is the fear of relatives, and almost every recorded use of the word is somebody pointing at it as an example of a strange word rather than describing anyone who has the fear. The word is quoted much more often than it is used.
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What the reference books say
The 2008 encyclopedia of phobias records it in four words, fear of relatives, followed by a cross-reference to its own entry for relatives, fear of. No case, no figure, no history. The book gives no source for the coinage and no clinical description of a person who has it.
That is the whole of the technical record. Everything else that exists is people quoting the word.
Why the citations are about the word
Wiktionary keeps a citations file for terms too sparsely attested to carry a full entry, and the one for syngenesophobia holds three quotations, all of them published books.
All three are books, and all three are handling it as a curiosity:
- a 2008 book on abuse of rank asks how somebody could acquire such a phobia as ambulophobia, the fear of walking, or syngenesophobia
- a 2014 book of advice for stage parents lists it beside sesquipedalophobia and telephonophobia among phobias that are not as common
- a 2023 humour book calls it a most unusual phobia, one the author can hardly pronounce, and gives it to a character who panics when relatives are coming and the house is not clean
Three uses, three lists of curiosities. None of the three writers had met a case; each was handling the word as an oddity, which makes the citations evidence about the vocabulary rather than about the fear.
What the longest text under the name is
The most substantial thing ever published with syngenesophobia as its title is a work of fan fiction about the animated series The Loud House. It was begun in February 2017, ran to 45 chapters and 345,476 words, was last updated in July 2021 and collected 1,829 reviews.
Its author defines the term in the story description as a general term for the fear of relatives, which can include siblings, and uses it for a plot in which a fight in a large family goes too far and the bond between them is shattered. The story is filed under hurt, comfort and drama.
A word with four dictionary words behind it and a third of a million words of fiction is an unusual balance, and it is the best available evidence of what the term is actually for. The reference books gave it a definition and nothing to attach the definition to. A fiction writer found the missing part, which is a family, and supplied it.
Why the fear itself is plausible
Nothing in any of the sources describes a clinical fear of relatives, so nothing here should be read as a description of one. What the sources do show is a gap between a plausible fear and an empty word.
Family is the one social category nobody selects, and the reference books already carry separate terms for a fear of one's own home and for the fear of returning to it. A word for the people in it fits the pattern. It simply arrived without anybody attached to it.
Told apart
Often confused with Fear of Relatives
- Fear of Home SurroundingsOikophobia names an aversion to the household itself. Syngenesophobia names the people in it, and the reference books keep the two words separate.
- Fear of Returning HomeNostophobia is the fear of the homecoming, which for most people is a meeting with relatives. Nothing separates the journey from the reception waiting at the end of it.
- Social Anxiety DisorderSocial anxiety disorder is a diagnosis with criteria and prevalence figures. Syngenesophobia has a definition and no case material, and family is the social category a person cannot decline.
Common questions
Questions about Syngenesophobia
- Does anyone actually use this word?
- Three published books use it, and all three are listing unusual phobias rather than describing a person. A 2008 book on rank, a 2014 book of advice for stage parents and a 2023 humour book each name it as a curiosity. Wiktionary files it under citations rather than giving it a full entry, which is what it does for terms attested too thinly to define.
- What does the encyclopedia of phobias say?
- Fear of relatives, then a cross-reference to its own entry for relatives, fear of. Four words in total, with no case, no prevalence figure and no account of where the term came from or who first used it.
- Where does the name come from?
- From the Greek syngenes, meaning kin or of the same descent, which itself joins syn, together with, and genos, birth. The compound names the people somebody is born among rather than the people they pick, which is the distinction that makes the fear worth a word at all.
- What is the fan fiction?
- A 45-chapter story about the animated series The Loud House, titled Syngenesophobia, begun in February 2017 and last updated in July 2021. It runs to 345,476 words, which is longer than everything the reference books have ever printed about the term combined, and it turns on a family fight that goes too far.
Added 2026-08-24 · Revised 2026-08-26
Nearby in the catalogue
Related entries
- Fear of Home SurroundingsIn psychiatry it would mean fear of the bathtub and the light switches. In practice it means whatever the person using it wants it to mean.
- Fear of Returning HomeNostalgia and nostophobia divide one Greek root between them: the pain of not returning home and the fear of doing it. Only one was ever a diagnosis.
- Social Anxiety DisorderThe definition covers positive evaluation as well as negative, which separates it from shyness. Attention to the diagnosis rose from 1999, when drugs arrived.
- AcephobiaTwo studies found asexual people rated as less human than other orientations, and a built-in control for unfamiliarity failed to explain the result.
- AnglophobiaA Glasgow study measured Anglophobia and Islamophobia side by side and found the same predictors. The object of the prejudice was close to interchangeable.
- BiphobiaIts commonest form is not hostility but denial that the category exists. Its synonym, monosexism, names the belief rather than the feeling and fits better.