paraskevidekatriaphobia (also friggatriskaidekaphobia) noun [U] the irrational fear of Friday the 13th paraskevidekatriaphobic adjective, noun [C] paraskevidekatriaphobe noun [C] ‘Touch wood, cross your fingers, and pop that lucky rabbit’s foot in your pocket – and there will be an almost five-to-one chance that you will not then be troubled today with paraskevidekatriaphobia – fear of Friday the 13th.’ (Tim Radford, The Guardian, Friday 13th June 2003) No one is quite certain why people associate Friday the 13th with bad luck. Various theories have been put forward over the years, including Friday as the day of Christ’s crucifixion and the ancient Egyptian belief that the 13th stage of life is death. Whatever the roots of this irrational fear, it undoubtedly represents a very real concern to many people, so much so that a 1993 article in the British Medical Journal investigated the relation between ‘health, behaviour and superstition surrounding Friday the 13th in the United Kingdom’. The study reported the surprising finding that, despite the fact that fewer people chose to travel on Friday 13th, there were significantly more hospital admissions due to accidents than there were on ‘normal’ Fridays. Whether this is coincidence or not, the fact remains that many of us would confess some degree of anxiety about Friday the 13th, deliberately rejecting it as a day for significant life events like marriage or moving house. It is therefore not surprising that a term for referring to this fear, albeit rather unwieldy, has been coined in English. The noun derivative paraskevidekatriaphobe refers to someone who suffers from the condition, and paraskevidekatriaphobic can be used either as an adjective or as an alternative means of referring to a sufferer. Background The term paraskevidekatriaphobia was first coined in the early nineties by Dr. Donald E. Dossey, an American psychotherapist specialising in phobias and stress management, who reputedly claimed that when someone was able to pronounce the word they were cured! The term is based on the Greek words paraskevi (‘Friday’) and dekatria (‘thirteen’) with -phobia as a suffix to indicate ‘fear’. A related term is triskaidekaphobia, coined in the early twentieth century to refer to fear of the number thirteen generally, but often also associated with fear of Friday the 13th. This word forms the basis of the variant form friggatriskaidekaphobia, frigga being an ancient Scandinavian goddess associated with witchcraft and Friday as the witches’ sabbath. Every year has at least one Friday the 13th, but paraskevidekatriaphobes are in for a treat in 2004, when there will be two, one in February and one in August! Search for paraskevidekatriaphobia on the Web. Search for paraskevidekatriaphobic on the Web. Search for paraskevidekatriaphobe on the Web. Search for friggatriskaidekaphobia on the Web. Search for friggatriskaidekaphobe on the Web. Search for triskaidekaphobia on the Web. Search for triskaidekaphobic on the Web. Search for triskaidekaphobe on the Web. Search with WebCorp. Search with Web Concordancer.
previous word of the week
