hydrophobia

1. 1.

   a symptom of rabies in humans consisting of an aversion to swallowing liquids

   Broadersymptom
2. 2.

   a morbid fear of water

   Broadersimple phobia
3. 3.

   an acute viral disease of the nervous system of warm-blooded animals (usually transmitted by the bite of a rabid animal); rabies is fatal if the virus reaches the brain

   Synonymsrabieslyssamadness

   Broaderzoonosis

Other forms of hydrophobia

plural

hydrophobias·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about hydrophobia

What does hydrophobia mean?

hydrophobia means "a symptom of rabies in humans consisting of an aversion to swallowing liquids". That is the primary sense; the word has 3 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in hydrophobia?

hydrophobia has 5 syllables: hy-dro-pho-bi-a. The stress falls on "pho".

What is another word for hydrophobia?

Close synonyms include rabies, lyssa, madness. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is hydrophobia a common word?

hydrophobia is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.