That ascribes the form or nature of an animal to something, esp. to a god or supernatural being. Cf. anthropomorphicadj. 1.
1880
The enlargement or abbreviation of words by letters, which in the curious zoomorphic dialect of many books, creep in, or drop out, or fall away, or develop as parasites.
J. A. H. Murray, 9th Annual Address Philological Society 22
1884
Mr. Sayce, who recognises totemism as the origin of the zoomorphic element in Egyptian religion.
A. Lang, Custom & Myth 118
1915
Belief that man is surrounded by spirits arises not only from zoömorphic interpretation of natural processes.
E. C. Hayes, Introd. Study Sociology xxx. 559
1976
Of all zoomorphic cults, the cult of the serpent..is one of the oldest.
Current Anthropologyvol. 17 742/2
2004
Early modern English satire was compulsively zoomorphic.
K. Perry in E. Fudge, Renaissance Beasts i. 19
Pronunciation
British English
/ˌzuː(ə)ˈmɔːfɪk/
zoo-uh-MOR-fick
/ˌzəʊəˈmɔːfɪk/
zoh-uh-MOR-fick
U.S. English
/ˌzu(ə)ˈmɔrfɪk/
zoo-uh-MOR-fick
/ˌzoʊəˈmɔrfɪk/
zoh-uh-MOR-fick
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.
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
zoomorphic typically occurs about 0.1 times per million words in modern written English.
zoomorphic is in frequency band 4, which contains words occurring between 0.1 and 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 zoomorphic, adj., 1840–2010
* 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.