Behaviour or belief characteristic or typical of a zealot; esp. immoderate or fanatical devotion to a religious or political cause or ideal. Also: an instance of this.
1653
Great zealotries for some new form and way of constituting, disciplining, and governing Churches.
J. Gauden, Hieraspistes 69
1656
Some mens and womens more plebeian Zelotry.
Discourse of Auxiliary Beauty 63
1711
According to which damnable Notion of false Zealotry, when they Consecrate an Assassin..to Murder an Heretick Prince, they Solemnly Consecrate him to the Work of the Lord.
Fanatical Moderation 33
1797
The ecstasy of eulogy and the zealotry of panegyric.
Monthly Reviewvol. 23 (App.) 573
1839
A more apostolic fervour of holy zealotry in this great cause.
T. De Quincey, Lake Reminisc. in Tait's Edinburgh Magazine February 102/1
1898
A bigot whose zealotry could not be pierced with sentiments of patriotism.
J. E. C. Bodley, Francevol. II.iii. vi. 316
1940
A ruthlessness and a zealotry that will go to any lengths to cripple an enemy.
M. Lerner in W. Waller, War in 20th Century 422
1984
A different form of religious and nationalist zealotry drives the..movement's settlers.
Winnipeg Free Press 13 March 8/2
2015
Their stories envision a world..where decisions are not driven primarily by greed, power lust, or zealotry.
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
1600s
zelotry
1600s–
zealotry
Frequency
zealotry typically occurs about 0.07 times per million words in modern written English.
zealotry 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 zealotry, n., 1750–2010
* 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
1750
0.0014
1760
0.0016
1770
0.0013
1780
0.0045
1790
0.0047
1800
0.0078
1810
0.01
1820
0.016
1830
0.02
1840
0.023
1850
0.023
1860
0.026
1870
0.025
1880
0.026
1890
0.024
1900
0.023
1910
0.024
1920
0.024
1930
0.025
1940
0.029
1950
0.034
1960
0.044
1970
0.055
1980
0.065
1990
0.071
2000
0.079
2010
0.088
Frequency of zealotry, 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.