Make Your Point > Archived Issues > NEOPHILIA
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As we check out the fun little world neophilia, see if you can recall these related words that also trace back to the Greek neos, meaning "new, young, fresh, or strange:"
"Neophilia" has Greek bits that literally mean "a love (philia) of newness (neos)."
Part of speech:
"Neophilia" is a rare word, but it's easy to understand. It sounds scholarly and psychological.
"These cats aren’t completely hairless; they just look that way. The first such breed originated in 1966 from a single naked kitten, appropriately named Prune. It is a mystery to me why anyone would want to perpetuate this condition; I suspect it is simple neophilia."
Explain the meaning of "neophilia" without saying "an obsession for new stuff" or "a preference for novelty."
Winifred Gallagher argued in her book New: Understanding Our Need for Novelty and Change that neophilia is a good thing, and, in fact, that it's "the quintessential human survival skill, whether adapting to climate change on the ancestral African savanna or coping with the latest digital toy from Silicon Valley."
Try to spend 20 seconds or more on the game below. Don’t skip straight to the review—first, let your working memory empty out.
1.
The precise opposite of NEOPHILIA is
I hope you're enjoying Make Your Point. It's made with love. I'm Liesl Johnson, a reading and writing tutor on a mission to explore, illuminate, and celebrate words. |