nyctophobe

English

Etymology

From nycto- (“night”) +‎ -phobe.

Noun

nyctophobe (uncountable)

1. Someone who is afraid of the night or darkness.

   Antonym: nyctophile

   • 1989, David Michaelis, Boy, Girl, Boy, Girl, New York, N.Y.,  […]: Bantam Books, →ISBN, page 173:

     Across the hall, Tad Gillespie, a genuine nyctophobe with the nyctophobe's morbid fear of the dark, lay wide awake, eyes peeled, armed with a collection of quartz-halogen flash-lights whose total candlepower could have lighted the Washington Monument.

   • 1992, T. J. Burr, Rocky Mountain Adventure Collection: The Adventures of a Colorado Mountaineer, Santa Barbara, C.A.: Fithian Press, →ISBN, page 188:

     Before returning to the surface, we shut off our lamps and experienced total darkness. A nyctophobe would have gone insane.

   • 2009, J. C. Hutchins [pseudonym; Chris Hutchins], Personal Effects, New York, N.Y.: St. Martin's Griffin, →ISBN, page 14:

     The Brink has no sympathy for claustrophobes or nyctophobes, people who are afraid of the dark. People like me.

   • 2010, Bill Pronzini, The Hidden, New York, N.Y.: Walker & Company, →ISBN, page 35:

     She was a borderline nyctophobe; had insisted on sleeping with a night-light on the entire time they'd been married.

Related terms

• nyctophobia
• nyctophobic