Lusophobia (Portuguese: Lusofobia) is a hostility toward Portugal, a nation occupying the west of the Iberian Peninsula in south-western Europe, its Portuguese people or the Portuguese language and culture. Like Lusitanic, the word derives from Lusitania, the Ancient Roman province that comprised what is nowadays Central and Southern Portugal, and phobia that means "fear" or, more likely, "aversion of". The term is used in Portuguese-speaking countries, and its use in English is almost non-existent. The opposite concept is lusophilia.
In the nineteenth century, the term Lusophobia was often used to describe nationalist sentiments in Brazil, a former colony of the Portuguese Empire, with Liberal politicians in Rio de Janeiro and Pernambuco advocating the reduction of immigrant Portuguese involvement in the Brazilian economy, though almost all were themselves of Portuguese descent. In Rio, the "Jacobinos", a small national radical group, were the strongest opponents of the "Galegos", the Portuguese immigrants, who were (and still are) also the biggest ethnocultural community in Brazil.
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