Xenophobia

Quick meaning: Xenophobia is a noun meaning A fear, antipathy, or hatred of strangers or foreigners.

Meaning

A fear, antipathy, or hatred of strangers or foreigners.

More Meanings

1. (science fiction, rare, nonstandard) A fear of aliens.

Example Sentences

The United States is not the only country where xenophobia pays dividends for politicians.

Like the Communist party before it, the Front National claimed to speak for the “working class”. The class enemy was rebranded from “bourgeoisie” to “elite”, communist xenophobia about “international capital” was supplemented with xenophobia against immigrants, and the proletariat had to ally with former adversaries such as small business owners, but the essential claim of working-class dignity remained intact.

The great sociologist Zygmunt Bauman argued that philo-Semitism and anti-Semitism both fall under “allosemitism”: literally Othering the Jew. He defined it not as resentment of what is different, which is xenophobia, but rather of what defies order and clear categories. In 1997, he wrote, “The Jew is ambivalence incarnate. And ambivalence is ambivalence mostly because it cannot be contemplated without ambivalent feeling: it is simultaneously attractive and repelling.”

Word Forms

• xenophobias
• xenofobia

Synonyms for xenophobia

Depending on context, synonyms include xenophoby.

Antonyms for xenophobia

Common opposites include xenomania, xenophilia, xenophily, allophilia.

Related Words

Related dictionary entries include xenophobic, homophobia, xenophobe, intolerance, hatred, hostility.

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