Hydrophobia — literally “fear of water” — has two distinct meanings. In medicine’s history it was the dreaded name for rabies: sufferers develop agonising throat spasms at the sight or thought of water, unable to swallow — the virus’s cruel signature. In psychiatry and general usage it means an irrational fear of water itself — of drinking it, swimming in it, or being near it — classified among the specific phobias and treated with gradual exposure therapy. The rabies sense reminds us that “hydrophobia” was once a death sentence uttered in one word; the phobia sense is the modern, treatable anxiety. Context decides which fear is meant.