zebra swallowtail, n.

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

# zebra swallowtailnoun

## Factsheet

### What does the noun zebra swallowtail mean?

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

### How common is the noun zebra swallowtail?

Fewer than 0.01occurrences per million words in modern written English

1900 | 0.0016
1910 | 0.0013
1920 | 0.0013
1930 | 0.0012
1940 | 0.0011
1950 | 0.0012
1960 | 0.0013
1970 | 0.0009
1980 | 0.0012
1990 | 0.0011
2000 | 0.0012
2010 | 0.0014

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

Earliest known use

1850s

The earliest known use of the noun zebra swallowtail is in the 1850s.

OED's earliest evidence for zebra swallowtail is from 1855, in Home Friend.

### Nearby entries

1. zebra plant, n. 1826–
2. zebra poison, n. 1871–74
3. zebra print, n. & adj. 1932–
4. zebra rhomb, n. 1770–1844
5. zebra rock, n. 1895–
6. zebra rush, n. 1882–
7. zebra shark, n. 1804–
8. zebra skin, n. 1774–
9. zebra spider, n. 1806–
10. zebra suit, n. 1853–
11. zebra swallowtail, n.1855–
12. zebra wolf, n. 1808–
13. zebrawood, n. 1768–
14. zebra woodpecker, n. 1884–
15. zebrina, n. 1846–
16. zebrine, adj. a1810–
17. zebroid, adj. & n. 1881–
18. zebrule, n. 1899–
19. zebu, n. 1771–
20. zecchino, n. 1572–
21. Zechstein, n. 1798–

## Meaning & use

1. 1855–
   A large swallowtail butterfly having white wings with black longitudinal stripes, Protographium marcellus, native to eastern North America.
   1. 1855

      > Here is a very handsome kind, the Zebra Swallow-tail (Papilio Ajax).

      Home Friend vol. 2 220
   2. 1901

      > The Tiger Swallowtail..the Zebra Swallowtail, the Cabbage butterfly..and the Clouded Sulphur..form a well-marked family.

      M. C. Dickerson, Moths & Butterflies iii. 248
   3. 2014

      > An adult zebra swallowtail alights on a sugar maple seedling.

      R. Darke & D. Tallamy, Living Landscape i. 28 (caption)
   insects
   1. swallow-tailed butterfly 1743–
      Having each of the hind wings prolonged into a ‘tail’, the two together suggesting the forked tail of a swallow, as the swallow-tailed butterfly n.…
   2. swallowtail butterfly?1749
      attributive. = swallow-tailed, adj.: as in swallowtail butterfly, swallowtail coat, swallowtail moth, swallowtail pennon; also formerly applied…
   3. zebra swallowtail 1855–
      A large swallowtail butterfly having white wings with black longitudinal stripes, Protographium marcellus, native to eastern North America.
   4. swallowtail 1869–
      Applied to various animals having a forked tail. A swallow-tailed butterfly.
   View in Historical Thesaurus

## Frequency

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

zebra swallowtail 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 swallowtail, n., 1900–2010

* 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
--- | ---
1900 | 0.0016
1910 | 0.0013
1920 | 0.0013
1930 | 0.0012
1940 | 0.0011
1950 | 0.0012
1960 | 0.0013
1970 | 0.0009
1980 | 0.0012
1990 | 0.0011
2000 | 0.0012
2010 | 0.0014

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

zebra, n. was revised in June 2018.