zero tillage, n.

zero-tillage
http://www.oed.com/dictionary/zero-tillage_n%3Ftab%3Dmeaning_and_use
Revised 2018

# zero tillagenoun

## Factsheet

### What does the noun zero tillage mean?

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

### How common is the noun zero tillage?

About 0.02occurrences per million words in modern written English

2017 | 0.002
2018 | 0.0022
2019 | 0.0031
2020 | 0.0031
2021 | 0.0026
2022 | 0.0032
2023 | 0.0033
2024 | 0.0021

### Where does the noun zero tillage come from?

Earliest known use

1960s

The earliest known use of the noun zero tillage is in the 1960s.

OED's earliest evidence for zero tillage is from 1963, in Kingsport (Tennessee) News.

### Nearby entries

1. zero-point energy, n. 1913–
2. zero population growth, n. 1955–
3. zero post, n. 1908–
4. zero-power, adj. 1950–
5. zero-rate, v. 1972–
6. zero-rated, adj. 1972–
7. zero rating, n. 1971–
8. zero sound, n. 1957–
9. zero-sum, adj. 1944–
10. zeroth, adj. 1850–
11. zero tillage, n.1963–
12. zero tolerance, n. 1940–
13. zerovalent, adj. 1906–
14. zero waste, adj. & n. 1974–
15. zero-zero, adj. & n. 1930–
16. zerumbet, n. 1640–
17. zest, n.¹ 1674–
18. zest, n.² 1706
19. zest, v. 1702–
20. zest, int. 1705–22
21. zester, n. 1963–

## Meaning & use

Agriculture.

1. 1963–
   A form of agriculture in which seed is sown in unploughed ground, herbicides being used to kill or control any existing vegetation; = no-till n., sod planting n..
   1. 1963

      > ‘Zero tillage’ may become a standard practice of some humid-area corn growers if results of preliminary research are borne out in further studies.

      Kingsport (Tennessee) News 14 January 2/4
   2. 1971

      > Even fairly low levels of pesticide destroyed these bacteria... The situation is made even worse by the growing popularity of ‘zero-tillage’.

      New Scientist 25 March 663/1
   3. 2008

      > The adoption of zero tillage has led to improved soil water management and increased water use by subsequent crops.

      Weed Technology vol. 22 486/1
   agriculture
   1. clovering 1652–
      transitive. To sow or lay down with clover. (In quots. as ˈclovering n.)
   2. broadcast 1707–
      Agriculture. A method of sowing which involves scattering seeds over the whole surface of the soil, rather than sowing seeds in drills or rows; the…
   3. broadcasting 1707–
      Agriculture. The action or an act of scattering seed, fertilizer, etc., over the whole surface of the soil.
   4. plumping 1844
      The sowing of seed in clumps or clusters. Cf. plumper, n.³
   5. undersowing 1960–
   6. zero tillage 1963–
      A form of agriculture in which seed is sown in unploughed ground, herbicides being used to kill or control any existing vegetation; = no-till, n., so…
   7. sod planting 1965–
      The sowing of seed in unploughed ground, herbicides being used to kill or control any existing vegetation.
   View in Historical Thesaurus

## Frequency

zero tillage typically occurs about 0.02 times per million words in modern written English.

zero tillage 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 zero tillage, n., 1960–2010

* 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
--- | ---
1960 | 0.015
1970 | 0.017
1980 | 0.017
1990 | 0.017
2000 | 0.021
2010 | 0.022

### Frequency of zero tillage, 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.

Period | Frequency per million words
--- | ---
2017 | 0.002
2018 | 0.0022
2019 | 0.0031
2020 | 0.0031
2021 | 0.0026
2022 | 0.0032
2023 | 0.0033
2024 | 0.0021

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

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