<Italian, perhaps ultimately < late Latinsabaia an Illyrian drink…
<Italian, perhaps ultimately < late Latinsabaia an Illyrian drink.
Notes
OED Supplement (1986) gives the pronunciation as (zabalyo·ne) /zɑːbɑːˈljəʊneɪ/ .
Meaning & use
1899–
A dessert consisting of egg yolks, sugar, and (usually Marsala) wine, whipped to a frothy texture over a gentle heat and served either hot or cold. Cf. sabayonn.
1899
Sambaglione.—Put into a saucepan about six new-laid eggs, and two sherry-glassfuls of Madeira.
M. Ninet, Dainty Meals for Small Households xiv. xiv. 223
1901
Zabajone is a kind of syllabub.
W. G. Waters, Cook's Decameron 175/1
1901
Iced zabajone.
W. G. Waters, Cook's Decameron 175/2 (heading)
1914
This was followed by a glass of zabaione for dessert.
C. E. Edwards, Bohemian in San Francisco 104
1917
We dined off onion pilaff, and sponge-cake of maize flour with zabayone.
Blackwood's Magazine January 111/1
1924
She had instructed Roberto to beat up some eggs..that she might make zabaglione.
M. Kennedy, Constant Nymph xvi. 222
1932
At a single opening of the book we find..zambaglione (the reviewer would prefer to omit the lemon-juice but to add a pinch of yeast).
Times Literary Supplement 10 November 836/4
1958
A nation that is content at midday with shepherd's pie..must dine out off kebabs and zabagliones.
Times 2 October 11/4
1960
A copper zabaglione pan.
House & Garden May 94/3
1974
The best-known Italian sweet, zabaglione.
Country Life 25 April 1006/1
1981
Zac ordered blackberry, peach, pineapple [ices] and zabaione.
R. Airth, Once a Spy ix. 100
1984
Whatever food is mentioned, from aubergines to zabaglione, they are ready to garnish it with some unsavoury gobbet of introductory junk music.
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
Also sambaglione, zabaione, etc.
Frequency
zabaglione typically occurs about 0.02 times per million words in modern written English.
zabaglione is in frequency band 3, which contains words occurring between 0.01 and 0.1 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 zabaglione, 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
0.0022
1910
0.0033
1920
0.004
1930
0.0047
1940
0.0065
1950
0.011
1960
0.015
1970
0.017
1980
0.018
1990
0.02
2000
0.023
2010
0.025
zabaglione, n. was first published in 1986; not fully revised.
zabaglione, n. was last modified in December 2024.