zoomable, adj.

zoomable
http://www.oed.com/dictionary/zoomable_adj%3Ftab%3Dmeaning_and_use
First published 2017

# zoomableadjective

## Factsheet

### What does the adjective zoomable mean?

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

zoomable has developed meanings and uses in subjects including

optics (1970s) computing (1980s)

### How common is the adjective zoomable?

Fewer than 0.01occurrences per million words in modern written English

2017 | 0.0033
2018 | 0.0041
2019 | 0.0041
2020 | 0.0041
2021 | 0.0057
2022 | 0.0048
2023 | 0.0044
2024 | 0.0045

### How is the adjective zoomable pronounced?

#### British English

/ˈzuːməbl/
ZOO-muh-buhl

#### U.S. English

/ˈzuməb(ə)l/
ZOO-muh-buhl

### Where does the adjective zoomable come from?

Earliest known use

1970s

The earliest known use of the adjective zoomable is in the 1970s.

OED's earliest evidence for zoomable is from 1972, in the writing of H. W. Rose.

zoomable is formed within English, by derivation.

Etymons: zoom v.1, ‑able suffix.

### Nearby entries

1. zoologico-, comb. form
2. zoologico-archaeologist, n. 1864
3. zoologist, n. 1663–
4. zoologize, v. 1830–
5. zoologizing, n. 1815–
6. zoology, n. 1663–
7. zoom, n. 1917–
8. zoom, v.¹ 1886–
9. Zoom, v.² 2014–
10. zoom, int. 1856–
11. zoomable, adj.1972–
12. zoomagnetism, n. 1824–
13. zooman, n. 1871–
14. zoomancy, n. 1888–
15. zoomania, n. 1807–
16. zoomantist, n. 1861
17. Zoomar, n. 1946–
18. zoomechanical, adj. 1897
19. zoomechanics, n. 1888–1903
20. zoomelanin, n. 1858–
21. zoometric, adj. 1892–

## Etymology

### Summary

Formed within English, by derivation.
< zoom v.1 + ‑able suffix.

## Meaning & use

1. 1.
   1972–
   Of a camera, lens, etc.: having an adjustable focal length, so as to allow different degrees of magnification. Cf. zoom v.1 3.
   In quot. 1972 in the context of producing a hologram.
   1. 1972

      > Such a system may have rather unique properties in these days of tunable lasers, in that it provides zoomable image magnification to be achieved simply by a change in the object illumination wavelength.

      H. W. Rose, Holographic Lens Syst. (Ph.D. diss., Ohio State Univ.) 232
   2. 1991

      > The department-store/sporting-goods-type spotting scopes with a fixed single eyepiece [zoomable or not] tend to have exit pupils so small that they're not much good for night-time use.

      Telescopes in sci.astro 14 November (Usenet newsgroup, accessed 11 Nov. 2016)
   3. 1999

      > My personal favorite weapon is the sniper rifle with zoomable scope.

      Spark 1 February 15/3
   4. 2014

      > On the rover's head will be..[a] zoomable camera that will take short movies as the rover drives.

      New Scientist (Nexis) 9 August
   optics
   1. zooming 1904–
      That zooms (in various senses of zoom, v.¹).
   2. zoomable 1972–
      Of a camera, lens, etc.: having an adjustable focal length, so as to allow different degrees of magnification. Cf. zoom, v.¹ 3.
   View in Historical Thesaurus
2. 2.
   1984–
   Computing. That allows a user to enlarge or decrease the size of an electronic image, document, etc.
   1. 1984

      > In addition to supporting multiple viewports each independently pannable and zoomable, the system has hardware generated grids.

      Proceedings Amer. Control Conf. 653/2
   2. 1992

      > All but one of them (WordPerfect ) give you zoomable editing views so that you can see parts of pages close up.

      Home Office Computing May 78/2
   3. 2013

      > Google's innovation was the web interface: its map was dragable, zoomable, panable.

      New York Times Magazine 15 December 44/3
   computing

## Pronunciation

### British English

/ˈzuːməbl/
ZOO-muh-buhl

### U.S. English

/ˈzuməb(ə)l/
ZOO-muh-buhl

####

##### 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

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

zoomable 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 zoomable, adj., 1980–2010

* 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
--- | ---
1980 | 0.007
1990 | 0.007
2000 | 0.007
2010 | 0.007

### Frequency of zoomable, 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 | 0.0033
2018 | 0.0041
2019 | 0.0041
2020 | 0.0041
2021 | 0.0057
2022 | 0.0048
2023 | 0.0044
2024 | 0.0045

zoomable, adj. was first published in June 2017.

zoomable, adj. was last modified in December 2023.