epistolophobia: fear of correspondence

I can't speak much to this phobia because I've never felt anything like it. I can tell you this was really fun to draw--especially the eyes.

But in the absence of sparkling commentary.... Who's up for some etymology?

The most commonly used term you might associate with epistolophobia's root word comes from the Bible. Everyone's heard of the "4 Gospels" that begin the New Testament. They're followed by the Book of Acts, which is sort of a bridge between the Gospels and what comes next: the 21 Epistles that run from Romans to Jude. (They're followed by Revelations, which is sort of in a class all by itself.)

Simply speaking, an epistle is a letter. In the Bible, the Epistles are the letters written (mostly by Paul, along with four or five others) from an individual to another individual or a group of people.

Therefore, epistolophobia is the fear of correspondence. In today's world, it often translates as a fear of opening the mail.

The word epistle comes from the Greek word epistolḗ, meaning (you guessed it) "message" or "letter."

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