Learn English – suffix for loathing

neologismssuffixes

For instance trichomania is a love of hair, and trichophobia is a fear of hair. But what suffix would denote a loathing of hair?

Edit: Maybe I'm looking at the wrong end of the word, and I should be considering the prefix "miso-".

Best Answer

With apologies in advance, I offer the following neologism: -odiumic, derived from odium, "quality that provokes hatred; offensiveness" (from Latin odium) plus ic, "used to form adjectives from nouns with the meaning 'of or pertaining to'". Note, it may be that -odious, a suffix carefully derived from odious by prefixing a hyphen, would work better; odious means "arousing or meriting strong dislike, aversion, or intense displeasure." The table below presents some relevant combinations for comparison and gnashing of teeth upon.

  • hirsuodiumic, hirsuodious - after hirsute, from Latin hirsūtus (“shaggy, hairy”).
  • dasuodiumic, dasuodious - after dasypygal, hairy-bottomed, from Greek δασύς (dasus, “hairy, dense”)
  • criniodiumic, criniodious - after crinose, hairy, from Latin crinis hair.
  • comaodiumic, comaodious - after Latin comatus, "having long hair." (Note spelling difference between comaodious and commodious.)
  • trichoodiumic, trichoodious - after trichology, "science or study of hair", from Greek τριχ (trich), root of θρίξ (thrix, “hair”) + -λογια

A concern I have with -odious is it may mean causing dislike, rather than (like -odiumic) being of dislike. For example, while hirsuodiumic may be interpreted as "of disliking hairiness", hirsuodious might mean "causing dislike of hairiness". A second concern, which I will leave to you, is determining which stem to use, with subconcerns of whether to mix Greek and Latin forms and of which stems more connote hair itself vs hairiness.