Waterfright

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A fear of water; aquaphobia. countable, nonstandard, rare, uncountable

    "Possibly the foundation was subconscious memories of two water-frights, one on the ocean at six, one on a pond at thirteen ; but these were in themselves unimportant; and I have found, in my subconscious, few ideational or emotional associations."

Example

More examples

"Possibly the foundation was subconscious memories of two water-frights, one on the ocean at six, one on a pond at thirteen ; but these were in themselves unimportant; and I have found, in my subconscious, few ideational or emotional associations."

Etymology

From water + fright. Compare Old English wæterfyrhtness (“fear of water, hydrophobia”).

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