a. n.A coral that possesses symbiotic zooxanthellae;b. adj.designating corals that possess symbiotic zooxanthellae; of or relating to zooxanthellae.
Stressed as zooxanˈthellate.
1981
It will be more convenient and precise from here onwards to refer to the two groups [of scleractinian corals] as zooxanthellates and non-zooxanthellates respectively.
B. R. Rosen in P. L. Forey, Evolving Biosphere ix. 106/2
1981
An important feature of the separation of zooxanthellate distribution into two realms is that there is a great disparity in their diversity.
B. R. Rosen in P. L. Forey, Evolving Biosphere ix. 107/2
1986
How water clarity influences zonation of zooxanthellate corals.
Palaiosvol. 1 391 (caption)
2008
There are 13 species of scleractinian corals recorded in the study region (two zooxanthellates and 11 azooxanthellates).
H. Reyes-Bonilla et al. in G. D. Danemann & E. Ezcurra, Bahía de los Ángeles x. 314
zooxanthellate typically occurs fewer than 0.01 times per million words in modern written English.
zooxanthellate 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 zooxanthellate, adj. & n., 1980–2010
* 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
1980
0.0074
1990
0.0074
2000
0.0074
2010
0.0074
Originally published as part of the entry for zooxanthella, n.
zooxanthellate, adj. & n. was first published in 2016.