<Russianzemskij sobor ecclesiastical council (18th cent.), national assembly (19th cent. or earlier; plural zemskie sobory) <zemskij (adjective) of land (<zemlja land, earth: see Zemblann.) + sobor…
<Russianzemskij sobor ecclesiastical council (18th cent.), national assembly (19th cent. or earlier; plural zemskie sobory) <zemskij (adjective) of land (<zemlja land, earth: see Zemblann.) + sobor assembly.Compare zemstvon.
Notes
In plural form Zemskie Sobory after the Russian plural form.
Compare the following earlier example of a borrowing of Russiansobor in the same sense:
1769
Michael Federowitz instituted them, in the beginning of the last century, to controul the Sobor or Senate, which had limited the power of the Czar.
translation of F. Algarotti, Letters to Lord Herveyvol. I. v. 99
Meaning & use
Russian History.
1877–
In 16th and 17th century Russia: a national assembly, convened (usually by the tsar) for particular purposes, and consisting of representatives of the aristocracy and landowners, the ecclesiastical authorities, and the merchants and free citizens of the towns.
The Zemsky Sobor was established under Ivan the Terrible in the mid 16th cent., but its importance declined after the 1620s. By the end of the century it had ceased to operate as a national body, although its revival has been proposed on several occasions (see quots. 1882, 1918).
1877
The Deputies..formed a kind of national Assembly called a Zémski Sobór.
Times 18 October 8/4
1882
He [sc. the Czar] ought to convoke the representatives of the people (zemsky sobor) and to solemnly return them the sovereign power, to whom it rightfully belongs.
Boston Daily Globe 13 November 1/3
1902
Vladislav..was to become ruler of Russia,..as one whose power was to be limited even to a greater extent than that of Shuiski, by the council or douma of the boiars and the states general, or Zemsky sobor of Russia.
M. Kovalevsky, Russ. Polit. Inst. iii. 56
1918
The Grand Duke is reported to have issued a manifesto to the Russian people adhering to his abdication and leaving the decision as to the form of government to be adopted to the Zemsky Sobor (Duma), which was to be convoked.
Times 27 June 5/3
1958
The reforms of Peter put an end both to the Zemski Sobor and the Duma.
D. J. R. Scott, Russian Political Institutions i. 23
2012
The 1613 zemsky sobor enthroned a new dynasty, the Romanovs.
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
gguy
jjay
yyore
chchore
khloch
shshore
ththaw
dhthee
zhbeige
Vowels
atrap
ahpalm
airsquare
arstart
arrcarry (British only)
awthought
ayface
a(ng)gratin
edress
eefleece
eerdeer
errmerry
ikit
ighpride
irrmirror
olot (British only)
ohgoat
oogoose
oorcure
orforce
orrsorry (British only)
owmouth
oyvoice
o(ng)salon
ustrut
uhletter
urnurse
urrhurry
uufoot
Forms
Inflections
Plural: Zemskie Sobory, Zemsky Sobors
Variant forms
1.
1800s–
Zemskii Sobor, Zemski Sobor, Zemsky Sobor
2. Also with lower-case initials.
Frequency
Zemsky Sobor typically occurs about 0.01 times per million words in modern written English.
Zemsky Sobor is in frequency band 3, which contains words occurring between 0.01 and 0.1 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 Zemsky Sobor, n., 1870–2010
* 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.
Decade
Frequency per million words
1870
0.0052
1880
0.0053
1890
0.0063
1900
0.0088
1910
0.015
1920
0.018
1930
0.024
1940
0.027
1950
0.028
1960
0.027
1970
0.024
1980
0.018
1990
0.016
2000
0.011
2010
0.0051
Zemsky Sobor, n. was revised in June 2018.
Zemsky Sobor, n. was last modified in September 2024.