Pronounced: path-uh-FOE-bee-uh, noun
Notes: So many of the phobia words are oddball that I wasn’t sure… maybe a fear of losing one’s way (path?) – it’s not that. My vocabulary must be improving since the time I added this word to the list… I figured it out this time, but apparently, I didn’t know it. Maybe you do?
Yesterday’s word
The word wushu (also wu shu) is “Chinese martial arts”
Background / Comments
No surprise; this word comes from Chinese (specifically, the Beijing dialect). It is a combination of wǔ (military or martial) and shù (art). It was originally the same thing as “kung fu”, but the meanings have diverged a bit: kung fu is more focused on hand-to-hand combat, but modern wushu emphasizes aesthetics and performance. One well-known form of wushu is “tai chi”.
First usage
This word showed up the in 1970s
Richard's Vocabulary Word-of-the-Day 