Zetetical Society, n.

zetetical-society
http://www.oed.com/dictionary/zetetical-society_n%3Ftab%3Dmeaning_and_use
Revised 2018

# Zetetical Societynoun

## Factsheet

### What does the noun Zetetical Society mean?

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

### How common is the noun Zetetical Society?

Fewer than 0.01occurrences per million words in modern written English

1890 | 0.002
1900 | 0.0026
1910 | 0.0033
1920 | 0.004
1930 | 0.0046
1940 | 0.005
1950 | 0.0046
1960 | 0.0047
1970 | 0.0041
1980 | 0.0033
1990 | 0.0025
2000 | 0.0017
2010 | 0.0013

### Where does the noun Zetetical Society come from?

Earliest known use

1880s

The earliest known use of the noun Zetetical Society is in the 1880s.

OED's earliest evidence for Zetetical Society is from 1881, in Malthusian.

### Nearby entries

1. zesty, adj. 1826–
2. zeta, n.¹?a1425–
3. zeta, n.² 1706–1860
4. zetacism, n. 1860–
5. zeta function, n. 1879–
6. zeta-ic, adj. 1840–1927
7. zeta potential, n. 1927–
8. zetetic, adj. & n. 1645–
9. zetetical, adj. & n. 1646–
10. zetetically, adv. 1665–
11. Zetetical Society, n.1881–
12. zetetics, n. 1843–
13. Zetland, n. 1577–
14. Zetlander, n. 1614–
15. Zetlandic, adj. 1701–
16. zetta-, comb. form
17. Zeuglodon, n. 1839–
18. zeuglodont, n. & adj. 1850–
19. zeuglodontoid, adj. & n. 1891
20. zeugma, n. c1450–
21. zeugmatic, adj. 1851–

## Meaning & use

1. 1881–
   (The name of) a free-thinking society founded in London in 1878 as a forum for debate of social, political, and scientific matters.
   1. 1881

      > Dr. C. R. Drysdale lectured on this subject at the Zetetical Society..at the Westminster Democratic Club.

      Malthusian January 187/1
   2. 1921

      > Not until..1879, did I for the first time rise to my feet in a little debating club called the Zetetical Society.

      G. B. Shaw, Immaturity (1930) p. xl
   3. 2012

      > The brainchild of Sir Ebenezer Howard, whom Shaw had befriended in 1879 at a Zetetical Society debate, the Garden City concept was first introduced in a short book.

      Shaw vol. 32 134
   1. Zetetical Society 1881–
      (The name of) a free-thinking society founded in London in 1878 as a forum for debate of social, political, and scientific matters.
   2. soul 1890–
      In spec. use. British. In plural. With the and capital initial. (The name of) a social circle in the late 19th cent. which included several of…
   View in Historical Thesaurus

## Frequency

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

Zetetical Society 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 Zetetical Society, n., 1890–2010

* 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
--- | ---
1890 | 0.002
1900 | 0.0026
1910 | 0.0033
1920 | 0.004
1930 | 0.0046
1940 | 0.005
1950 | 0.0046
1960 | 0.0047
1970 | 0.0041
1980 | 0.0033
1990 | 0.0025
2000 | 0.0017
2010 | 0.0013

Originally published as part of the entry for zetetical, adj. & n.

zetetical, adj. & n. was revised in June 2018.