The term is listed by the Online Etymology Dictionary (Harper, Douglas. "coulrophobia". Online Etymology Dictionary.) with the caveat that it "looks suspiciously like the sort of thing idle pseudo-intellectuals invent on the Internet and which every smarty-pants takes up thereafter". The prefix coulro- is "said to be built from Greek kolon 'limb,' with some supposed sense of 'stilt-walker,' hence 'clown'" (i.e. Greek κωλοβαθριστήςkolobathristes "stilt-walker").
Probably coined no earlier than the late 1980s but no later than the 1990s, the term "has been coined more on the Internet than in printed form because it does not appear in any previously published, psychiatric, unabridged, or abridged dictionary." (Robertson 2003:62)
The Oxford Dictionary of English adopted the term in 2010, also deriving it from kolobatheron "stilt" (Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), "coulrophobia noun", Oxford Dictionary of English (online ed.), Oxford University Press, ISBN978-0-19-957112-3, retrieved 14 March 2011)
The term is listed by the Online Etymology Dictionary (Harper, Douglas. "coulrophobia". Online Etymology Dictionary.) with the caveat that it "looks suspiciously like the sort of thing idle pseudo-intellectuals invent on the Internet and which every smarty-pants takes up thereafter". The prefix coulro- is "said to be built from Greek kolon 'limb,' with some supposed sense of 'stilt-walker,' hence 'clown'" (i.e. Greek κωλοβαθριστήςkolobathristes "stilt-walker").
Probably coined no earlier than the late 1980s but no later than the 1990s, the term "has been coined more on the Internet than in printed form because it does not appear in any previously published, psychiatric, unabridged, or abridged dictionary." (Robertson 2003:62)
The Oxford Dictionary of English adopted the term in 2010, also deriving it from kolobatheron "stilt" (Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), "coulrophobia noun", Oxford Dictionary of English (online ed.), Oxford University Press, ISBN978-0-19-957112-3, retrieved 14 March 2011)
