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The earliest known example of neophilia in print is from an 1899 issue of Political Science Quarterly, a publication of Columbia University. The word is a combination of the Greek-derived combining forms neo-, meaning "new," and -philia, meaning "liking for." In the 1930s, the form neophily was introduced as a synonym of neophilia, but no neophilia could save it from obscurity-it has never caught on. The opposite of neophilia is neophobia, meaning "a dread of or aversion to novelty." It has been around slightly longer than neophilia, having first appeared in 1886.
Examples of neophilia in a Sentence
Arthur C. Brooks, The Atlantic, 27 May 2021
That sort of institutional neophilia is not going to work with products like cars or factory robots, which can have much longer lifespans, says Mr Palmer.
—The Economist, 12 Sep. 2019
Each century seems to bring its radical transformations, from the Great Fire in the 17th to the elegant city squares of the 18th, the explosion of the suburbs of the 19th and the scars of war and the neophilia of modernism in the 20th.
—Edwin Heathcote, CNN, 11 May 2017
Cite this Entry
“Neophilia.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/neophilia. Accessed 13 Jun. 2026.
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