<Assyrianziqquratu (also zigg-, sig(g)-, ‑ur(r)at) height, pinnacle, top of a mountain, temple-tower; compare zaqaru to be high (Muss-Arnolt).
Meaning & use
1.
1873–
A staged tower of pyramid form in which each successive storey is smaller than that below it, so as to leave a terrace all round; an Assyrian or Babylonian temple-tower.
1873
At the north end the cone represents the ancient ziggurat or tower.
Daily Telegraph 7 July 5/6
1877
The ziggurrat or sacred tower of the palace of Khorsabad.
translation of Lenormat's Chaldæan Magic xv. 227
1883
In all directions rise the lofty ziggurats or towers of the temples.
P. H. Hunter, Story of Daniel ix. 156
1898
The ziggurat, or great tower, of which the Tower of Babel was a famous example.
The bags are abandoned, of course, and join the rest of the overkill of trash imagery, now heaped into ziggurats, festooning vegetation, scrawled in livid drifts on the downs.
Daily Telegraph 30 October (Colour Supplement) 26/3
1979
His Dallas Chapel in the form of a spiral ziggurat..borrows quite directly from the ninth-century minaret at Samarra.
Journal of Royal Society of Arts November 761/1
1980
The photograph will give an idea of the real engineering performed to make this temple a ‘ziggurat’ of comb—upward from the base above the regular [honey]combs.
Bee Culture July 376
Pronunciation
British English
/ˈzɪɡᵿrat/
ZIG-uh-rat
U.S. English
/ˈzɪɡəˌræt/
ZIG-uh-rat
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.
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
Variant forms
1800s–
ziggurat, zikkurat
Frequency
ziggurat typically occurs about 0.2 times per million words in modern written English.
ziggurat 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 ziggurat, 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
0.025
1880
0.03
1890
0.036
1900
0.049
1910
0.063
1920
0.07
1930
0.09
1940
0.12
1950
0.14
1960
0.15
1970
0.16
1980
0.17
1990
0.15
2000
0.16
2010
0.16
Frequency of ziggurat, 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
0.02
2018
0.02
2019
0.022
2020
0.023
2021
0.024
2022
0.022
2023
0.023
2024
0.021
ziggurat, n. was first published in 1921; not fully revised.