There are terms that are used to describe something we like or dislike. For example, the term "nyctophilia" means loving or preferring the darkness.
Is there is a term that describes disliking sunset?
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2the link is directed at nyctophobia– Mari-Lou ACommented Dec 2, 2016 at 18:58
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If there is an actual phobia, you may use a hyphen: sunset-phobic.– aparente001Commented Dec 3, 2016 at 3:48
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1 Answer
No, there isn't a single word for "disliking sunset" (or at least, I know of no such term). There also isn't any obvious way to form one.
Just as the Ancient Greek word for "night" is nyx, with the combining form nyct(o)-, the Ancient Greek word for "sunset" seems to be heliodysion, which I think would have the combining form heliodysi(o)-. (Note: there are other Greek and Latin roots meaning things like "twilight" and "dusk".)
However, there's no good way I know of to take it from there and find or invent a noun meaning "dislike of sunset".
Usually, nouns ending in -phobia refer to fears. In some cases, they refer to more generalized aversions (such as hydrophobia) but this is not the semantic center of the suffix. So *heliodysiophobia seems off.
One affix used in words derived from Greek that does indicate "disike" is mis(o)-, as in misogyny or misanthropy. However, it's not particularly productive, especially not for nouns, and *misheliodysy or *miseliodysy look weird and are incomprehensible (I'm also not all that confident that these would be the correct forms).
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1Maybe as a coinage, "crepuscophobia", which would mean fear of twilight, at both sunrise & sunset.– jamesqfCommented Dec 2, 2016 at 18:49
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The Greeks had a couple of deities (namely, Hespera and Astraeus) assigned to the dusk. Conceivably you could suffix "-phobic" to one of their names and coin something not-too-outlandish that way. Indeed, around the web I see that "hesperophobic" is used as "fear of the west", or more precisely "fear of Western culture". Commented Dec 2, 2016 at 19:00
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@jamesqf: I don't know if "crepuscul-" is such a great root to use in this case. For one thing, it's Latin, not Greek. Also, I get the sense that it refers mainly to the dusk or darkness that comes after sunset.– herissonCommented Dec 2, 2016 at 19:08
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@DougWarren: Good point about "hesper-" also being able to indicate sunset/evening. Based on what you say, it doesn't seem like a word meaning "hatred of sunset" could be formed from this root, since "hesperophobia" is already used with another meaning.– herissonCommented Dec 2, 2016 at 19:10