zebra danio, n.

zebra-danio
http://www.oed.com/dictionary/zebra-danio_n%3Ftab%3Dmeaning_and_use
Revised 2018

# zebra danionoun

## Factsheet

### What does the noun zebra danio mean?

There is one meaning in OED's entry for the noun zebra danio. See ‘Meaning & use’ for definition, usage, and quotation evidence.

### How common is the noun zebra danio?

Fewer than 0.01occurrences per million words in modern written English

1930 | 0.0002
1940 | 0.0004
1950 | 0.0008
1960 | 0.0012
1970 | 0.0016
1980 | 0.002
1990 | 0.0023
2000 | 0.0027
2010 | 0.003

### Where does the noun zebra danio come from?

Earliest known use

1910s

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

OED's earliest evidence for zebra danio is from 1917, in the writing of W. T. Innes.

### Nearby entries

1. zeal-worthy, adj. 1797
2. zea maize, n. 1811–
3. zearalanol, n. 1966–
4. zearalenone, n. 1966–
5. zeatin, n. 1963–
6. zeaxanthin, n. 1929–
7. Zebedist, n. 1574
8. zebra, n. 1597–
9. zebra caterpillar, n. 1841–
10. zebra crossing, n. 1934–
11. zebra danio, n.1917–
12. zebraed, adj. 1806–
13. zebra finch, n. 1868–
14. zebrafish, n. 1771–
15. zebraic, adj. 1858–
16. zebra marking, n. 1854–
17. zebra moray, n. 1933–
18. zebra mule, n. 1841–
19. zebra mussel, n. 1866–
20. zebrano, n. 1908–
21. zebra opossum, n. 1808–

## Meaning & use

1. 1917–
   A small freshwater cyprinid fish with horizontal dark and light stripes, Danio rerio, native to the Himalayas, popular in aquariums, and much used in research; cf. zebrafish n. 2.
   1. 1917

      > Danio rerio, Zebra Danio.

      W. T. Innes, Goldfish Varieties & Tropical Aquarium Fishes vii. 86
   2. 1962

      > Some species, such as the Zebra Danio, will spawn over gravelly bottoms even when there are no plants present.

      D. W. Tucker, translation of G. Sterba, Freshwater Fishes of World 265
   3. 2006

      > Begin with well-known live-bearers such as guppies and then go on to some of the hardy egg-layers, such as the zebra danio.

      F. Indiviglio, Everything Aquarium Book xx. 268
   fish
   1. zebra danio 1917–
      A small freshwater cyprinid fish with horizontal dark and light stripes, Danio rerio, native to the Himalayas, popular in aquariums, and much used…
   2. zebrafish 1927–
      Any of several striped scorpionfishes of the genera Pterois and Dendrochirus.
   View in Historical Thesaurus

## Frequency

zebra danio typically occurs fewer than 0.01 times per million words in modern written English.

zebra danio 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 zebra danio, n., 1930–2010

* 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
--- | ---
1930 | 0.0002
1940 | 0.0004
1950 | 0.0008
1960 | 0.0012
1970 | 0.0016
1980 | 0.002
1990 | 0.0023
2000 | 0.0027
2010 | 0.003

Originally published as part of the entry for zebra, n.

zebra, n. was revised in June 2018.