papilio machaon caterpillar

Is probably what this is, but that doesn't mean I'm going to write about that. Spouseman took this with his fifteen-year-old Fuji. Perhaps I should try to learn how to use it.

The word 'xenophobia' has been used quite a bit over the past few days and I would much rather write about that instead.

In Greece, words that begin with an x are pronounced as such, and not with a z as is the habit in English. So xenophobia is pronounced ksenophobia and xylophone is pronounced kseelophone.

To Greek ears zenophobia would sound as though it meant someone who feared Japanese dhyana concentration-meditation.

Xenos is the Greek noun meaning stranger and phobia is the Greek verb meaning fear.
Xero is the Greek verb to know, but not of a person. The Greek verb to be acquainted with a person is gnorizo from which English gets its word agnostic, to be unacquainted.

So I took my mind rambling and have come up with zerophobia, the fear of nothing, which would be quite distinct from fearlessness. Zerophobia would be the fear of nothingness; the fear of death without everlasting life, of having no money, or no shelter. If zero were a Greek word then zerophobia would be a perfectly understood concept here.