Pronounced: KLOW-der, noun
Notes: All I can see is “chowder” misspelled.
Yesterday’s word
The word coulrophobia is “the fear of clowns”
First usage
Our word came into English in the 1980s
Background / Comments
I assume that our word came into English later because clowns were originally supposed to be funny; it was later that clowns began to be seen as creepy. I don’t know anyone that truly suffers from coulrophobia, but I have heard of people that don’t like clowns. The word comes from the Greek words kolobatheron (stilt) and -phobia (fear). I assume that clowns were frequently on stilts, or falling off of them (for comic effect), and this is why the Greek word for ‘stilt’ was used.
Richard's Vocabulary Word-of-the-Day 