Medicine & BodyGreek → English
Hydrophobia
/ˌhaɪdrəˈfoʊbiə/noun
Rabies in its later stage, and by extension any fear of water.
The Greek roots
ὕδωρ
hýdōr
water
φόβος
phóbos
fear, aversion
Literally: “fear of water”
The story of the word
Ancient physicians named rabies for its cruellest sign: the victim burns with thirst and then convulses at the sight of a cup. That was the standard English name for the disease into the nineteenth century, and newspapers reported Pasteur's 1885 vaccine as a cure for hydrophobia. Only after the disease acquired its Latin name did the Greek one drift into the milder modern sense.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
- First recorded
- late 14th century
Same family
hydratehydraulicphobiaxenophobia
In a sentence
The parish register lists a farm boy dead of hydrophobia in 1791.
Her hydrophobia is specific: swimming pools are fine, open water is not.