hydrophobe
\i.dʁɔ.fɔb\
The verdict
“hydrophobe” is uncommon French (frequency #86,800 among 109,908 “H” headwords), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #86,800
- frequency rank, French
- 109,908
- “H” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Qui est atteint d’hydrophobie.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | hydrophobe |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | \i.dʁɔ.fɔb\ |
| Letters | 10 |
| Frequency rank | #86,800 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “hydrophobe” sits in French frequency
Rare enough to double-check
hydrophobe is uncommon French at frequency #86,800 among 109,908 “H” headwords, classed as anadjective, transcribed \i.dʁɔ.fɔb\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 4 senses are on record.
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for hydrophobe, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable French rules. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, which typically means the spelling is too distinctive to be mistaken for another word.
Wiktionary doesn't record an etymology for this headword, so its spelling is best explained by sound-to-letter mapping rather than etymology. The correct French form is hydrophobe, spelled H-Y-D-R-O-P-H-O-B-E.
Definition
- 1Qui est atteint d’hydrophobie.
- 2Enragé. Qualifiait, jusqu’au début du XXᵉ siècle, un homme ou un animal enragé, l’hydrophobie étant un des symptômes de la rage.
- 3Se dit d’une substance, ou d’une portion de molécule, qui ne se dissout pas dans l’eau et qui n’a pas d’affinité avec elle.
- 4Nomme les surfaces qui repoussent l'eau, des surfaces non mouillables.
Antonyms
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 French corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “hydrophobe”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct French spelling is H-Y-D-R-O-P-H-O-B-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as \i.dʁɔ.fɔb\ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Browse more French words and confusable pairs in the same reference. French words
Other uncommon French words near this rank
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.