''hydrotherapy'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260125123911-00-⌔

hydrotherapy - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Noun

hydrotherapy (countable and uncountable, plural hydrotherapies)

• (alternative medicine) Any of various techniques that use water, either externally or internally, for the treatment of disease and for the soothing of pain.
  • ✤ Radio-active baths are said to act favourably in a sexual direction. So too with arsenical springs, cold water treatment, and hydrotherapy.¹
  • ✤ At the bedside, healers practiced a variety of Western fads such as hydrotherapy, which utilized harmless but ineffectual water cures for many ailments […]²

Etymology

From hydro- + therapy.

Pronunciation

• Audio (US): 🔊

Printed 2026-06-28.

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Footnotes

1. 1961, Harry E. Wedeck, Dictionary of Aphrodisiacs, New York: The Citadel Press, page 156: ↩

2. 2008, Harriet A. Washington, “Southern Discomfort”, in Medical Apartheid ‎${}^{[1]}$, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, page 68: ↩