It causes a person to experience overwhelming or debilitating fear of a situation or thing that typically does not pose any real danger. According to the National Institute of Mental Health ...

It is but too true that the liberties of the people are in danger. It is a fearful fact, and one that should be better understood in this great crisis of national destiny. But that danger is not ...

The suppression of her cartoon has become a symbol of spinelessness—­­of a once-intrepid American newspaper now too afraid to lampoon the richest men on Earth for their obsequiousness.