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What is the antonym for "heliotrope", the property of following the sun, or, what is the word that describes the property of one who seeks the shade ?

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    Heliotropism is a phenomenon presented in biology, I do not know or haven't heard of heliotrope being used out of this context. Could you provide us with an example of the opposite behaviour? Or in whatever context you expect to use this?
    – Nicholas J.
    Nov 4, 2014 at 22:27
  • AFAIK, heliotrope is the name of a member of the plant family whose flowers are used for perfumes.
    – Manish Giri
    Nov 4, 2014 at 22:36
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    I'd call these positive and negative phototropism.
    – user230
    Nov 4, 2014 at 22:56
  • Vampirism??????
    – Tᴚoɯɐuo
    Nov 5, 2014 at 3:27

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After digging through some terms, I came across with photophobia:

Photophobia is a behavior demonstrated by insects or other animals which seek to stay out of the light.

Which sounds pretty much like 'property of one who seeks the shade'.

Though the term is usually used for the visual discomfort of the light.

Aphototrophism is defined as:

The response of an organism in turning away from the source of light.

If the context is outside the scope of biology and botanic, the first one could work, if not, the second fits just alright; though it's not really used, not too many books contain this word.

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I can't closevote as General Reference because the word isn't at all common. But anyone who knows their suffixes could extrapolate from the antonymic pair -phile, -phobe...

heliophobe one who is abnormally sensitive to the effect of sunlight

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