The Greek root-phil- originates from the Greek word meaning "love". For example, philosophy (along with the Greek root -soph- meaning "wisdom") is the study of human customs and the significance of life. One of the most common uses of the root -phil- is with philias.
A philia is the love or obsession with a particular thing or subject. The suffix -philia is used to specify the love or obsession with something more specific. It is somewhat antonymic to -phobia. Philias can be biological (e.g. rhizophilia, preference for living on roots) or chemical (e.g. chromophilous, materials that stain easily), or can be a hobby/liking (e.g. icthyophilia, love for fish).
Philia (φιλία) as a Greek word for love refers to brotherly love, including friendship and affection. This contrasts to the Greek terms Eros, or sexual/romantic love, and agape, or detached, spiritual love. However, English usage differs in some cases from the etymological use, and several of these words refer in English not to brotherly love but to sexual attraction.
The suffix -phile (or, in a few cases, -philiac) applies to someone who has one of these philia. It is the antonym of -phobe.
Phil- (philo-) may also be used as a prefix with a similar meaning.
Logophilia: love of words — logophiles may be interested in word games, such as crosswords, or Scrabble, and in the extreme, derive enjoyment from reading things commonly given less notice, such as labels
Metrophilia: love of the metro rail or subway systems
Neophilia: love of the latest novelties and trends
Paraphilia (previously known as sexual perversion and sexual deviation) is the experience of intense sexual arousal to atypical objects, situations, fantasies, behaviors, or individuals. Such attraction may be labeled sexual fetishism
Homophile: a term used to refer to gay people or those who supported homosexuality, prior to gay liberation and other LGBT social movements. It was proposed as an alternative to homosexual, that would have a more positive connotation, before the word "gay" became dedicated for this purpose
Topophilia: a strong sense of place, which often becomes mixed with the sense of cultural identity among certain people and a love of certain aspects of such a place
Biology – The natural science that studies life. Areas of focus include structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy.
A microorganism, or microbe, is an organism of microscopic size, which may exist in its single-celled form or as a colony of cells.
A paraphilia is an experience of recurring or intense sexual arousal to atypical objects, places, situations, fantasies, behaviors, or individuals. It has also been defined as a sexual interest in anything other than a legally consenting human partner. Paraphilias are contrasted with normophilic ("normal") sexual interests, though the definition of what makes a sexual interest normal or atypical remains controversial.
A thermophile is an organism—a type of extremophile—that thrives at relatively high temperatures, between 41 and 122 °C. Many thermophiles are archaea, though some of them are bacteria and fungi. Thermophilic eubacteria are suggested to have been among the earliest bacteria.
Klismaphilia, from the Greek words κλύσμα and φιλία ("love"), is a paraphilia involving enjoyment of, and sexual arousal from, enemas.
Medical fetishism refers to several sexual fetishes in which participants derive sexual pleasure from medical scenarios including objects, practices, environments, and situations of a medical or clinical nature. In sexual roleplay, a hospital or medical scene involves the sex partners assuming the roles of doctors, nurses, surgeons and patients to act out specific or general medical fetishes. Medical fantasy is a genre in pornography, though the fantasy may not necessarily involve pornography or sexual activity.
This glossary of ecology is a list of definitions of terms and concepts in ecology and related fields. For more specific definitions from other glossaries related to ecology, see Glossary of biology, Glossary of evolutionary biology, and Glossary of environmental science.
Ephebophilia is the primary sexual interest in mid-to-late adolescents, generally ages 15 to 19. The term was originally used in the late 19th to mid-20th century. It is one of a number of sexual preferences across age groups subsumed under the technical term chronophilia.Ephebophilia strictly denotes the preference for mid-to-late adolescent sexual partners, not the mere presence of some level of sexual attraction. It is not a psychiatric diagnosis.
Hebephilia is the strong, persistent sexual interest by adults in pubescent children who are in early adolescence, typically ages 11–14 and showing Tanner stages 2 to 3 of physical development. It differs from pedophilia, and from ephebophilia. While individuals with a sexual preference for adults may have some sexual interest in pubescent-aged individuals, researchers and clinical diagnoses have proposed that hebephilia is characterized by a sexual preference for pubescent rather than adult partners.
Agalmatophilia is a paraphilia involving sexual attraction to a statue, doll, mannequin, or other similar figurative object. The attraction may include a desire for actual sexual contact with the object, a fantasy of having sexual encounters with an animate or inanimate instance of the preferred object, the act of watching encounters between such objects, or sexual pleasure gained from thoughts of being transformed or transforming another into the preferred object. Agalmatophilia overlaps Pygmalionism, the love for an object of one's own creation, named after the myth of Pygmalion. Agalmatophilia is a form of object sexuality. English poet Edmund Spenser wrote of Pygmalionism in some of his works.
Psychrophiles or cryophiles are extremophilic organisms that are capable of growth and reproduction in low temperatures, ranging from −20 °C (−4 °F) to 20 °C (68 °F). They are found in places that are permanently cold, such as the polar regions and the deep sea. They can be contrasted with thermophiles, which are organisms that thrive at unusually high temperatures, and mesophiles at intermediate temperatures. Psychrophile is Greek for 'cold-loving', from Ancient Greek ψυχρός (psukhrós) 'cold, frozen'.
Xenophilia or xenophily is the love for, attraction to, or appreciation of foreign people, manners, customs, or cultures. It is the antonym of xenophobia or xenophoby. The word is a modern coinage from the Greek "xenos" (ξένος) and "philia" (φιλία), though the word itself is not found in classical Greek.
Vorarephilia is a paraphilia characterized by the erotic desire to be consumed by, or to personally consume, another person or creature, or an erotic attraction to the process of eating in general practice. Soft vore fantasies are separated from sexual fantasies of cannibalism, also referred to as "hard vore", because the soft vore victim is normally swallowed alive and whole. The word vorarephilia is derived from the Latin vorare, and Ancient Greek φιλία.
Acrotomophilia is a paraphilia in which an individual expresses strong sexual interest in amputees. It is a counterpart to apotemnophilia, the desire to be an amputee.
Hair fetishism, also known as hair partialism and trichophilia, is a partialism in which a person sees hair – most commonly, head hair – as particularly erotic and sexually arousing. Arousal may occur from seeing or touching hair, whether head hair, armpit hair, chest hair or fur. Head-hair arousal may come from seeing or touching very long or short hair, wet hair, certain colors of hair or a particular hairstyle.
In biology, detritus is dead particulate organic material, as distinguished from dissolved organic material. Detritus typically includes the bodies or fragments of bodies of dead organisms, and fecal material. Detritus typically hosts communities of microorganisms that colonize and decompose it. In terrestrial ecosystems it is present as leaf litter and other organic matter that is intermixed with soil, which is denominated "soil organic matter". The detritus of aquatic ecosystems is organic substances that is suspended in the water and accumulates in depositions on the floor of the body of water; when this floor is a seabed, such a deposition is denominated "marine snow".
Attraction to disability is a sexualised interest in the appearance, sensation and experience of disability. It may extend from normal human sexuality into a type of sexual fetishism. Sexologically, the pathological end of the attraction tends to be classified as a paraphilia. Other researchers have approached it as a form of identity disorder. The most common interests are towards amputations, prosthesis, and crutches. As a sexual fetish, attraction to disability is known as devotism, and those with the fetish are known as devotees.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to ecology:
A xerophile is an extremophilic organism that can grow and reproduce in conditions with a low availability of water, also known as water activity.
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