Word of the Day: xenophilia

[TotallyOz]

Here is the word for this week:

xenophilia \zen-uh-FIL-ee-uh\, noun:

An attraction to foreign peoples, cultures, or customs.

Yet the scenario of openhanded host and guest, of xenophilia, is played out time and time again in Homer's Odyssey. It mattered to those hill-bound and sea-scattered tribes that the wanderer be made welcome…

-- Nicholas Delbanco, The Lost Suitcase

This connectedness — so evident to the drama's spectator, so indiscernible to the dramatized participant — promotes what we might call xenophilia.

-- Susan Gubar, Critical Condition

The opposite of xenophobia, xenophilia has the same Greek roots. It literally means "attracted to strangers." It first appeared in English in the 1920s and was used heavily after the Second World War.

[Guest hitoallusa]

So are we studying for SAT or GRE?

[AdamSmith]

I confess I had never before conceived of this as a paraphilia.

But count me in!