a. Statistics designating the degree of correlation between two variables when no other variables are held constant; (also) of or relating to this;b. Chemistry designating a chemical reaction in which the rate of reaction is constant and (apparently) independent of the concentration of the reactant; (also) designating an equation modelling such a reaction.
1919
The zero order coefficients were all determined by the direct product-moment method, without the formation of correlation tables.
Public Health Rep. (U.S. Public Health Service) vol. 34 1773
1926
When small amounts of solid are used, the reaction is better represented by a ‘zero’ order than by a first-order equation.
American Chem. Societyvol. 48 2860
1929
The correlation between score and experience when the factor of age is kept constant is seen to be slightly higher than the zero order correlation.
Journal Educ. Researchvol. 19 316/2
1978
This means that changing the concentration of X will not affect the rate of a reaction which is zero order with respect to X.
G. C. Hill & J. S. Holman, Chemistry in Context xxiii. 359
2012
For a zero-order reaction, the rate is constant.
S. A. Zumdahl & S. S. Zumdahl, Chemistry xii. 544
2012
The zero-order correlation between this measure of Allport's optimal conditions and secular volunteering is higher..than the correlation for mainline respondents.
zero-order typically occurs about 0.3 times per million words in modern written English.
zero-order 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 zero-order, adj., 1910–2010
* 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
1910
0.024
1920
0.038
1930
0.071
1940
0.14
1950
0.21
1960
0.26
1970
0.3
1980
0.3
1990
0.27
2000
0.24
2010
0.21
Originally published as part of the entry for zero, n. & adj.