hydrophobia
noun
Simple meaning
A symptom of rabies in humans made up of an aversion to swallowing liquids.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
hydruhfohbeeuhSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
haɪdɹəˈfoʊbiə
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
psychologycolloquial
A morbid fear of water; aquaphobia.
pathology
A symptom of rabies in humans consisting of an aversion to swallowing liquids
pathology
An aversion to water, as a symptom of rabies; the disease of rabies itself.
chemistry
A lack of affinity for water; the quality of being hydrophobic
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A symptom of rabies in humans consisting of an aversion to swallowing liquids
Used this way, hydrophobia is a specialist word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This is a clinical use: it belongs to medical description, where it is factual rather than emotive.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Specialist/technical
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Specialized
- Connotation
- Clinical and technical
- Usage feel
- Technical and specialized
Where it naturally appears
- Medicine/healthcare
- Science
- Technical/specialist writing
Usage note
In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.