For others, it has meant loneliness, fear and a bewildering array of choices.

"I mean fear of the open spaces," he said.

And more homes mean greater fear of and losses from wildfires.

The word agoraphobia means "fear of the market place".

"If the pupil becomes wider, it generally means fear or at least ambivalence," he said.

We understood these to mean understandable fear of being publicly involved in "flake" science.

Remorse, which often merely means fear of punishment, had no place in his soul, and torture he seemed not to dread.

"Xenophobia means fear of people from another country," she writes.

In the past, the Latin term was used, horror feminae, meaning "fear of women".

It can also mean fear of God's judgment.