# claustrophobia

Pronunciation: US say "klaw-struh-FOH-bee-uh" /ˌklɔ.strəˈfoʊ.bi.ə/; UK say "klos-truh-FOH-bee-uh" /ˌklɒs.trəˈfəʊ.bi.ə/

## Noun

1. Fear of being in enclosed, cramped places, such as small rooms, tunnels, or crowded elevators.
   - Simple: Fear of being in small, closed places, like a tiny room or an elevator.
   - _People who suffer from claustrophobia sometimes ask for an open scanner instead of a standard MRI machine._
   - _A wave of claustrophobia hit him as the cave passage narrowed to a crawl._

## Origin

From Latin claustrum ("a shut-in place"), which comes from claudō ("I shut, close; I imprison, confine"), combined with the suffix -phobia. The word was first recorded in the British Medical Journal.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/claustrophobia (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).