zero-coupon, adj.

zero-coupon
http://www.oed.com/dictionary/zero-coupon_adj%3Ftab%3Dmeaning_and_use
Revised 2018

# zero-couponadjective

## Factsheet

### What does the adjective zero-coupon mean?

There is one meaning in OED's entry for the adjective zero-coupon. See ‘Meaning & use’ for definition, usage, and quotation evidence.

### How common is the adjective zero-coupon?

About 0.1occurrences per million words in modern written English

2017 | 0.0071
2018 | 0.013
2019 | 0.021
2020 | 0.026
2021 | 0.033
2022 | 0.035
2023 | 0.036
2024 | 0.031

### Where does the adjective zero-coupon come from?

Earliest known use

1970s

The earliest known use of the adjective zero-coupon is in the 1970s.

OED's earliest evidence for zero-coupon is from 1979, in Journal Finance.

### Nearby entries

1. zerda, n. 1780–1860
2. zerk, n. 1926–
3. zero, n. & adj. 1604–
4. zero, v. 1813–
5. zeroable, adj. 1956–
6. zero balance, adj. 1974–
7. zero-base, adj. 1962–
8. zero-based, adj. 1963–
9. zero beat, n. 1920–
10. zero-carbon, adj. 1990–
11. zero-coupon, adj.1979–
12. zero creep, n. 1904–
13. zero crossing, n. 1941–
14. zero day, n. 1917–
15. zero-defect, adj. 1964–
16. zero derivation, n. 1960–
17. zero derivative, adj. & n. 1948–
18. zero-derived, adj. 1971–
19. zero-dimensional, adj. 1880–
20. zero-emission, n. & adj. 1952–
21. zero-energy, adj. 1947–

## Meaning & use

Finance.

1. 1979–
   Designating a bond or other debt obligation for which no interest is paid, being issued below its redemption price, with the full amount payable on maturity; of or relating to a bond, etc., issued in this way; esp. in zero-coupon bond.
   1. 1979

      > The relationship between yield curves for zero coupon bonds and coupon-bearing bonds is important.

      Journal Finance vol. 34 189
   2. 1981

      > BAC will file a registration statement..relating to the offer of zero coupon notes to mature in 1990.

      Financial Times 19 September 16/1
   3. 1994

      > The most junior bonds, the zero-coupon issue due in 2006, would fetch 13.3 cents on the dollar.

      New York Times (Nexis) 15 July d4/5
   4. 2014

      > Japanese investors flocked to zero coupon bonds as all income could be declared as a capital gain.

      C. O'Malley, Bonds without Borders (2015) iv. 77
   stock market
   1. gold bearing?c1599–
      a. That yields or carries gold; b. U.S. designating a bond on which the principal and interest are paid in gold (now historical).
   2. convertible 1869–
      Of bonds, loan stock, etc.: that can be converted into other shares (esp. ordinary shares) or another class of stock on a preferred basis…
   3. yearling 1911–
      Finance. In early use: designating a bond redeemable after one year. In later use usually: British designating a bond issued by a local…
   4. Euroconvertible 1968–
      a. adj. Of or designating a Eurobond, Euro-issue, etc., having the right of conversion into another type of security; b. n. a Eurobond…
   5. muni 1979–
      Municipal; spec. designating or relating to a municipal bond. Esp. in muni bond.
   6. zero-coupon 1979–
      Designating a bond or other debt obligation for which no interest is paid, being issued below its redemption price, with the full amount payable…
   View in Historical Thesaurus

## Frequency

zero-coupon typically occurs about 0.1 times per million words in modern written English.

zero-coupon is in frequency band 4, which contains words occurring between 0.1 and 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 zero-coupon, adj., 1970–2010

* 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
--- | ---
1970 | 0.051
1980 | 0.088
1990 | 0.11
2000 | 0.14
2010 | 0.17

### Frequency of zero-coupon, adj., 2017–2024

* Occurrences per million words in written English

Modern frequency series are derived from a corpus of 20 billion words, covering the period from 2017 to the present. The corpus is mainly compiled from online news sources, and covers all major varieties of World English.

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 corpus.

Period | Frequency per million words
--- | ---
2017 | 0.0071
2018 | 0.013
2019 | 0.021
2020 | 0.026
2021 | 0.033
2022 | 0.035
2023 | 0.036
2024 | 0.031

Originally published as part of the entry for zero, n. & adj.

zero, n. & adj. was revised in June 2018.