zucchini, n.

zucchini
http://www.oed.com/dictionary/zucchini_n%3Ftab%3Dmeaning_and_use
First published 1986; not fully revised

# zucchininoun

## Earlier version

- zucchini, n. pl. in OED Second Edition (1989)

## Factsheet

### What does the noun zucchini mean?

There are two meanings listed in OED's entry for the noun zucchini. See ‘Meaning & use’ for definitions, usage, and quotation evidence.

#### Entry status

OED is undergoing a continuous programme of revision to modernize and improve definitions. This entry has not yet been fully revised.

### How common is the noun zucchini?

About 0.6occurrences per million words in modern written English

1920 | 0.011
1930 | 0.018
1940 | 0.023
1950 | 0.078
1960 | 0.25
1970 | 0.42
1980 | 0.56
1990 | 0.69
2000 | 0.79
2010 | 0.77

### How is the noun zucchini pronounced?

#### British English

/zʊˈkiːni/
zuuk-EE-nee

#### U.S. English

/zuˈkini/
zoo-KEE-nee

### Where does the noun zucchini come from?

Earliest known use

1910s

The earliest known use of the noun zucchini is in the 1910s.

OED's earliest evidence for zucchini is from 1916, in the Boston Globe.

zucchini is a borrowing from Italian.

Etymons: Italian zucchino.

### Nearby entries

1. Zou-Zou, n. 1860–
2. zowie, int. 1902–
3. zoysia, n. 1965–
4. ZPG, n. 1970–
5. Zr, n. 1814–
6. zubr, n. 1763–
7. zubrowka, n. 1916–
8. zucarine, adj. a1425
9. zucca, n. 1818–
10. zucchetto, n. 1853–
11. zucchini, n.1916–
12. zuche, n. 1358–1676
13. Zuckerkandl, n. 1910–
14. zufolo, n. 1724–
15. zug, n. 1899–
16. zugtrompete, n. 1978–
17. Zugunruhe, n. 1950–
18. Zugzwang, n. 1904–
19. zule | zulis, n. 1780–
20. Zulu, n. & adj. 1824–
21. Zulu, v. 1882–

## Etymology

### Summary

A borrowing from Italian.
Etymon: Italian zucchino.
< Italian, plural of zucchino (small) marrow, diminutive of zucca gourd.

## Meaning & use

1. 1. a.
      1916–
      With plural (and also singular) agreement. Courgettes.
      The usual word for the vegetable in North America and Australia.
      1. 1916

         > Then there are the zucchini, a sort of green squash, which when cut up and fried or stewed in stock are very good.

         Boston Sunday Globe 19 November 41/2
      2. 1929

         > Wash the succini and slice thinly into a baking pan.

         Sunset February 58/2
      3. 1945

         > Succulent summer squash and zucchini where it seemed only a matter of an hour ago there were blossoms.

         B. Macdonald, Egg & I iv. xiii. 183
      4. 1960

         > The miniature vegetable marrows called courgettes in France and zucchini in Italy.

         Guardian 15 July 8/7
      5. 1966

         > Around them all, Negroes carried gunboats of mashed potatoes, spinach, shrimp, zucchini, pot roast, to the long, glittering steam tables.

         T. Pynchon, Crying of Lot 49 iv. 82
      6. 1975

         > Zucchini, although a relatively new vegetable, is rapidly becoming an alternative to the old standards.

         Telegraph (Brisbane) 11 September 30/2
      7. 1982

         > I kept on to the market..to replenish our stores of onions, zucchini, and Bartlett pears.

         L. Kallen, Introd. C. B. Greenfield xiii. 125
      1. vegetable marrow 1822–
         vegetable marrow n. (Chiefly British) any of various kinds of squash or gourd which are chiefly the fruits of varieties of Cucurbita pepo, eaten…
      2. marrow squash 1844–
         = marrow, n.¹ III.5.
      3. marrow 1855–
         = sense III.5a.ii.
      4. succade gourd 1866–
         The vegetable marrow.
      5. zucchini 1916–
         With plural (and also singular) agreement. Courgettes.
      6. courgette 1931–
         A variety of small vegetable marrow.
      7. vegetable spaghetti 1973–
         A variety of edible squash with flesh which, when cooked, separates into strands with an appearance and texture similar to that of spaghetti…
      View in Historical Thesaurus
   2. b.
      1960–
      attributive.
      1. 1960

         > We..will grow..those exquisite little Zucchini marrows.

         House & Garden August 72/3
      2. 1967

         > They were all charged with having stolen four cases of zucchini melons.

         Courier-Mail (Brisbane) 4 November 8
      3. 1979

         > The waiters had wheeled in zucchini quiche.

         E. Newman, Sunday Punch xv. 127
      1. zucchini 1960–
         attributive.
      View in Historical Thesaurus

## Pronunciation

### British English

/zʊˈkiːni/
zuuk-EE-nee

### U.S. English

/zuˈkini/
zoo-KEE-nee

####

##### Consonants

- ppea
- ttea
- kkey
- bbuy
- ddye
- ɡguy
- tʃchore
- dʒjay
- ffore
- θthaw
- ssore
- ʃshore
- vvee
- ðthee
- zzee
- ʒbeige
- xloch
- hhay
- llay
- ɬrhingyll
- rray
- wway
- jyore
- mmay
- nnay
- ŋsing

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.

View the pronunciation model here.

####

##### Consonants

- ppea
- ttea
- kkey
- bbuy
- ddye*
- ɡguy
- tʃchore
- dʒjay
- ffore
- θthaw
- ssore
- ʃshore
- vvee
- ðthee
- zzee
- ʒbeige
- xloch
- hhay
- llay
- rray
- wway
- jyore
- mmay
- nnay
- ŋsing

* /d/ also represents a 'tapped' /t/ as in

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.

View the pronunciation model here.

####

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

## Frequency

zucchini typically occurs about 0.6 times per million words in modern written English.

zucchini 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 zucchini, n., 1920–2010

* 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
--- | ---
1920 | 0.011
1930 | 0.018
1940 | 0.023
1950 | 0.078
1960 | 0.25
1970 | 0.42
1980 | 0.56
1990 | 0.69
2000 | 0.79
2010 | 0.77

### Frequency of zucchini, n., 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 | 0.61
2018 | 0.6
2019 | 0.59
2020 | 0.59
2021 | 0.6
2022 | 0.62
2023 | 0.63
2024 | 0.65

zucchini, n. was first published in 1986; not fully revised.

zucchini, n. was last modified in December 2024.