noun ·Common ·High school level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   An infectious disease caused by species of Lyssavirus that causes acute encephalitis in warm-blooded animals and people, characterised by abnormal behaviour such as biting, excitement, aggressiveness, and dementia, followed by paralysis and death. uncountable
2. 2
   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 wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms

hydrophobiahydrophobialyssaacute articular rheumatismafrican lethargyague

Example

More examples

"A squirrel transmitted rabies to my daughter."

Etymology

Learned borrowing from Latin rabiēs (“rage, madness, fury”). Doublet of rage.

Related phrases

baby rabiesfurious rabies

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.