zoospore, n.

zoospore
http://www.oed.com/dictionary/zoospore_n%3Ftab%3Dmeaning_and_use
Revised 2017

# zoosporenoun

## Earlier version

- zoospore in OED Second Edition (1989)

## Factsheet

### What does the noun zoospore mean?

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

### How common is the noun zoospore?

About 0.2occurrences per million words in modern written English

1840 | 0.16
1850 | 0.2
1860 | 0.23
1870 | 0.34
1880 | 0.38
1890 | 0.44
1900 | 0.45
1910 | 0.48
1920 | 0.44
1930 | 0.43
1940 | 0.43
1950 | 0.43
1960 | 0.39
1970 | 0.35
1980 | 0.29
1990 | 0.22
2000 | 0.19
2010 | 0.15

### How is the noun zoospore pronounced?

#### British English

/ˈzuː(ə)spɔː/
ZOO-uh-spor
/ˈzəʊəspɔː/
ZOH-uh-spor

#### U.S. English

/ˈzoʊəˌspɔr/
ZOH-uh-spor
/ˈzu(ə)ˌspɔr/
ZOO-uh-spor

### Where does the noun zoospore come from?

Earliest known use

1840s

The earliest known use of the noun zoospore is in the 1840s.

OED's earliest evidence for zoospore is from 1842, in Annals & Magazine of Natural History.

zoospore is formed within English, by compounding; modelled on a French lexical item.

Etymons: zoo- comb. form, spore n.

### Nearby entries

1. zoopsychology, n. 1847–
2. zooscopic, adj. 1817–
3. zooscopy, n. 1891–
4. zoosematic, adj. 1898–1909
5. zoosemiotics, n. 1963–
6. zoosophy, n. 1662–1848
7. zoosperm, n. 1824–
8. zoospermatic, adj. 1845–79
9. zoosporangiophore, n. 1889–
10. zoosporangium, n. 1862–
11. zoospore, n.1842–
12. zoosporic, adj. 1854–
13. zoosporous, adj. 1845–
14. zoot, n. 1942–
15. zootaxy, n. 1833–
16. zootechnic, adj. 1861–
17. zootechnics, n. 1863–
18. zootechny, n. 1841–
19. zootheca, n. 1852–
20. zoothecium, n. 1880–
21. zootheism, n. 1879–

## Etymology

### Summary

Formed within English, by compounding; modelled on a French lexical item.
Etymons: zoo- comb. form, spore n.
< zoo- comb. form + spore n., after French zoospore (J. Decaisne 1842, in Ann. des sci. nat.: Botanique vol. 17 307).

## Meaning & use

Biology.

1. 1842–
   A motile flagellate spore, as produced by certain algae, fungi, and protozoans. Cf. zoosperm n. 2.
   macrozoospore, megazoospore, microzoospore, zygozoospore: see the first element.
   Numerous zoosporic organisms are pathogens causing disease in economically significant plant and animal species.
   1. 1842

      > What may be the purpose served in the œconomy of the plant by this motion of zoospores?

      Annals & Magazine of Natural History vol. 10 341
   2. 1858

      > For the propagation of their kind,..the Confervæ have two different modes; the one being the liberation of moving particles, termed zoospores, from the interior of the cells.

      E. Lankester & W. B. Carpenter, Vegetable Physiology (new edition) §767
   3. 1890

      > The..zoospores..have swarmed, and escaped, or been emitted from their sporangium, or generative sac.

      Journal New York Microsc. Society vol. 6 70
   4. 1948

      > The zoospores may also be unusually large.

      American Journal of Botany vol. 35 247/1
   5. 1987

      > For the great majority of algae the spores, often referred to as zoospores or swarmers, are motile.

      R. L. Fletcher, Seaweeds of British Isles vol. III. i. 36
   6. 2010

      > You only need a few zoospores to reach potato tubers to suffer significant and damaging blight infections.

      Cornish Guardian (Nexis) 14 July 46
   fungi physiology
   1. sporule 1819–
      A spore or spore-granule. In Botany.
   2. zoocarp 1824–88
      A motile spore or single-celled organism, esp. a zoospore.
   3. zoospore 1842–
      A motile flagellate spore, as produced by certain algae, fungi, and protozoans. Cf. zoosperm, n. 2.
   4. propagule 1858–
      A portion of a plant, fungus, etc., that is capable, when detached, of giving rise to a new individual by asexual or sexual reproduction (e.g. a leaf…
   5. swarm-spore 1859–
   6. winter bud 1869–
      Botany. A detachable bud-like organ, typically produced by certain aquatic plants, which functions as a vegetative propagule. Cf. turion, n.…
   7. macrozoospore 1875–
   8. zygozoospore 1881–
      A zoospore formed by conjugation; a motile zygospore.
   9. swarm-cell 1882–
      = swarm-spore, n. (a).
   10. sporangiospore 1889–
       A spore produced in a sporangium.
   11. planospore 1904–
       A motile spore, a zoospore.
   12. planont 1914–
       A motile spore, gamete, or zygote; esp. the motile stage of certain microsporidian protozoans or phycomycetes.
   View in Historical Thesaurus
   1. zoosperm 1842–91
      A zoospore. Cf. sporozoid, n. Obsolete.
   2. zoospore 1842–
      A motile flagellate spore, as produced by certain algae, fungi, and protozoans. Cf. zoosperm, n. 2.
   3. zoosporangium 1862–
      A sporangium containing or producing zoospores.
   4. zoosporangiophore 1889–
      A sporangiophore bearing zoosporangia.
   View in Historical Thesaurus

## Pronunciation

### British English

/ˈzuː(ə)spɔː/
ZOO-uh-spor
/ˈzəʊəspɔː/
ZOH-uh-spor

### U.S. English

/ˈzoʊəˌspɔr/
ZOH-uh-spor
/ˈzu(ə)ˌspɔr/
ZOO-uh-spor

####

##### 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.

View the pronunciation model here.

####

##### Consonants

- ppea
- ttea
- kkey
- bbuy
- ddye*
- ɡguy
- tʃchore
- dʒjay
- ffore
- θthaw
- ssore
- ʃshore
- vvee
- ðthee
- zzee
- ʒbeige
- xloch
- hhay
- llay
- rray
- wway
- jyore
- mmay
- nnay
- ŋsing

* /d/ also represents a 'tapped' /t/ as in

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.

View the pronunciation model here.

####

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

See zoo- comb. form and spore n.

## Frequency

zoospore typically occurs about 0.2 times per million words in modern written English.

zoospore 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 zoospore, n., 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.

Decade | Frequency per million words
--- | ---
1840 | 0.16
1850 | 0.2
1860 | 0.23
1870 | 0.34
1880 | 0.38
1890 | 0.44
1900 | 0.45
1910 | 0.48
1920 | 0.44
1930 | 0.43
1940 | 0.43
1950 | 0.43
1960 | 0.39
1970 | 0.35
1980 | 0.29
1990 | 0.22
2000 | 0.19
2010 | 0.15

### Frequency of zoospore, 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 | 0.0011
2018 | 0.0017
2019 | 0.0021
2020 | 0.0021
2021 | 0.0027
2022 | 0.0062
2023 | 0.0069
2024 | 0.0079

## Compounds & derived words

Sort by

1. zoosporous, adj. 1845–
   Producing zoospores; of the nature of, or…

1. zoosporic, adj. 1854–
   Producing zoospores; of the nature of, or…

1. macrozoospore, n. 1875–

1. microzoospore, n. 1875
   A relatively small zoospore.

1. zygozoospore, n. 1881–
   A zoospore formed by conjugation; a motile zygospore.

1. megazoospore, n. 1889–
   A relatively large zoospore, esp. produced by…

zoospore, n. was revised in June 2017.

zoospore, n. was last modified in September 2023.