Uncommon Names for Common, and Not so Common, Philias

The word philia is one of a handful of Greek words that express love and affection. It derives from the ancient Greek verb phileo (= to love). The verb phileo (and its derivative philia) are umbrella terms that encompass all sorts of loving. To the ancient Greeks, philia was the love of a mother for a child, but also the sexual attraction between lovers; the non-sexual affection between friends as well as the ties of partnership (read "friendship diplomacy") between cities; the love between husband and wife, brothers and sisters, fellow soldiers, or even businessmen and their loyal customers. In short, philia was essentially the opposite of hate. (In Modern Greek, the meaning of philia has narrowed to "friendship".)

Unlike manias and phobias, which are both nouns and suffixes in Modern English, -philia can only be a suffix (as in bibliophilia, love of books). The suffix -philia is attached to words that denote preference, attraction, affinity, propensity, enthusiasm, love, or obsession, ranging from harmless hobbies and occupations (as in bibliophilia and oenophilia) to icky pathological states (as in necrophilia)-and everything in between. The first part of words denoting -philias is usually derived from either Greek or Latin roots.

Here is a sampler of some common (and some not so common) -philias:

bibliophilia: love of (reading and collecting) books; to be distinguished from bibliomania, which describes the (pathologically) obsessive impulse to hoard books (from the Greek biblion = scroll, book)

cryophilia: preference for cold climates, as in the case of cryophilic bacteria, that thrive at very low temperatures (from the Greek kryos = chill, frost)

dendrophilia: sexual attraction to trees (from the Greek dendron = tree)

glossophilia: love of language and the study of languages; glossophiles are often polyglots (from the Greek glossa = tongue, language)

Hibernophilia: love of all things Irish (from the classical Latin Hibernia = Ireland)

lithophilia: preference for rocks, as in the case of certain micro-organisms that live within rocks (from the Greek lithos = stone)

necrophilia: sexual attraction to corpses (from the Greek nekros = a dead body, a corpse)

oenophilia: love, enjoyment, and appreciation of wine (from the Greek oinos = wine)

retrophilia: love of all things past; a nostalgic enthusiasm for past fashions, trends, attitudes, and objects ("retro objects") (from the Latin retro = behind, back, backwards, i.e. in times past)

technophilia: love of new technology (from the Greek techne = art, skill, craft)

zoophilia: caring for animals (non-sexual zoophilia) or, more commonly, sexual fixation on animals (from the Greek zoon = living being, animal); N.B. zoophily (the suffix -phily being an anglicized variation of -philia), on the other hand, means "pollination by vertebrates". Go figure...

Sources:
Merriam-Webster Online: http://www.m-w.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoophily