The attribution of animal form or nature to a god or supernatural being. Cf. anthropomorphismn. 1.
1822
The most gross is the religion of the Egyptians, in which the attributes of the divinity were represented under the figures of animals... This may be termed zoomorphism[French Zoomorphisme].
translation of C. Malte-Brun, Universal Geographyvol. I.xxiii. 576
1882
Zoomorphism is much more absurd than Anthropomorphism.
St. G. Mivart, Nature & Thought 205
1921
Zoömorphism is really not more absurd than anthropomorphism.
Christian Sci. Journal January 533/2
1989
God's protective care is shown through zoomorphism..: ‘Hide me in the shadow of your wings.’
M. R. Wilson, Our Father Abraham ix. 142
2006
Zoomorphism appears to be less common in early Chinese religion than it was in ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome, or Gaul.
R. Sterckx in P. Waldau & K. Patton, Communion of Subj.iv. 261/2
The supernatural transformation of a person or god into an animal.
1839
This people believe in zoomorphism, or the transformation of men into beasts.
Penny Magazine 23 November 456/1
1853
Among the widespread epidemical delusions of bygone times, the doctrine of Zoomorphism—the belief of men being transformed into animals—is one of the most curious and deep-rooted.
Asylum Journal No. 1. 52/1
1949
We have had occasion to mention the animal transformations of the Morrígan. This zoomorphism is an important feature of many Irish goddesses.
M. Dillon, translation of M. L. Sjoestedt, Gods & Heroes of Celts 33
2008
Vibrant tales of cowboys, zoomorphism (the singer turns into a wolf on the title track) and an outlaw killer.
Buffalo (New York) News (Nexis) 14 November g2
2.
1860–
Imitation or representation of animal forms in decorative art or symbolism.
1860
Objects..which present as their peculiar and prevailing characteristic that zoomorphism of ornamentation.
C. Innes, Scotland in Middle Ages 206
1879
An Irish crosier..exhibits a more pronounced character of zoomorphism.
J. Anderson, Scotland in Early Christian Times (1881) 221
1958
Expressed by a zoomorphism which one comes across at times in some representations.
East & Westvol. 9 93/2
1986
Pots, in particular, lend themselves to anthropomorphism (or perhaps zoomorphism).
G. Cadogan, End Early Bronze Age 85
2003
That sensibility has also been called zoomorphism..and reflects a widening interest among designers in borrowing the flowing forms of nature.
Some consonants can take the function of the vowel in unstressed syllables. Where necessary, a syllabic marker diacritic is used, hence /ˈpɛtl/ but /ˈpɛtl̩i/.
Vowels
iːfleece
ihappy
ɪkit
ɛdress
atrap, bath
ɑːstart, palm, bath
ɒlot
ɔːthought, force
ʌstrut
ʊfoot
uːgoose
əletter
əːnurse
ɪənear
ɛːsquare
ʊəcure
eɪface
ʌɪpride
aʊmouth
əʊgoat
ɔɪvoice
ãgratin
ɒ̃salon
ᵻ(/ɪ/-/ə/)
ᵿ(/ʊ/-/ə/)
Other symbols
The symbol ˈ at the beginning of a syllable indicates that that syllable is pronounced with primary stress.
The symbol ˌ at the beginning of a syllable indicates that that syllable is pronounced with secondary stress.
Round brackets ( ) in a transcription indicate that the symbol within the brackets is optional.
Some consonants can take the function of the vowel in unstressed syllables. Where necessary, a syllabic marker diacritic is used, hence /ˈpɛd(ə)l/ but /ˈpɛdl̩i/.
Vowels
ifleece, happy
ɪkit
ɛdress
ætrap, bath
ɑlot, palm, cloth, thought
ɑrstart
ɔcloth, thought
ɔrnorth, force
ʊfoot
ugoose
əstrut, comma
ərnurse, letter
ɪ(ə)rnear
ɛ(ə)rsquare
ʊ(ə)rcure
eɪface
aɪpride
aʊmouth
oʊgoat
ɔɪvoice
ɑ̃gratin
æ̃salon
ᵻ(/ɪ/-/ə/)
ᵿ(/ʊ/-/ə/)
Other symbols
The symbol ˈ at the beginning of a syllable indicates that that syllable is pronounced with primary stress.
The symbol ˌ at the beginning of a syllable indicates that that syllable is pronounced with secondary stress.
Round brackets ( ) in a transcription indicate that the symbol within the brackets is optional.
Simple text respell breaks words into syllables, separated by a hyphen. The syllable which carries the primary stress is written in capital letters. This key covers both British and U.S. English Simple Text Respell.
Consonants
b, d, f, h, k, l, m, n, p, r, s, t, v, w and z have their standard English values
zoomorphism typically occurs fewer than 0.01 times per million words in modern written English.
zoomorphism is in frequency band 2, which contains words occurring between 0.001 and 0.01 times per million words in modern written English. More about OED's frequency bands
Frequency data is computed programmatically, and should be regarded as an estimate.
Frequency of zoomorphism, n., 1820–2010
* Occurrences per million words in written English
Historical frequency series are derived from Google Books Ngrams (version 2), a data set based on the Google Books corpus of several million books printed in English between 1500 and 2010.
The overall frequency for a given word is calculated by summing frequencies for the main form of the word, any plural or inflected forms, and any major spelling variations.
For sets of homographs (distinct entries that share the same word-form, e.g. mole, n.¹, mole, n.², mole, n.³, etc.), we have estimated the frequency of each homograph entry as a fraction of the total Ngrams frequency for the word-form. This may result in inaccuracies.
Smoothing has been applied to series for lower-frequency words, using a moving-average algorithm. This reduces short-term fluctuations, which may be produced by variability in the content of the Google Books corpus.