Science & TechnologyGreek → English
Hydrophobic
/ˌhaɪdrəˈfoʊbɪk/adjective
Repelling water, or failing to mix with it, as oils and waxes do.
The Greek roots
ὕδωρ
hýdōr
water
φόβος
phóbos
fear
Literally: “water-fearing”
The story of the word
The word began in medicine, not chemistry. Greek doctors called rabies patients ὑδροφόβοι because the disease makes swallowing agonising and the sight of water terrifying, and hydrophobia was the ordinary English name for rabies well into the nineteenth century. Chemistry then borrowed the term for molecules that will not dissolve in water, which is a matter of energetics rather than repulsion. A lotus leaf is hydrophobic; a rabies patient was not, in that sense, afraid of getting wet.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
Same family
hydrophobiahydrogenphobiaclaustrophobiahydrant
In a sentence
The coating is hydrophobic enough that rain beads and rolls straight off the glass.