zetanoun1
Factsheet
What does the noun zeta mean?
There is one meaning in OED's entry for the noun zeta. See ‘Meaning & use’ for definition, usage, and quotation evidence.
How common is the noun zeta?
| 1760 | 0.014 |
| 1770 | 0.012 |
| 1780 | 0.011 |
| 1790 | 0.012 |
| 1800 | 0.0095 |
| 1810 | 0.01 |
| 1820 | 0.011 |
| 1830 | 0.0099 |
| 1840 | 0.0076 |
| 1850 | 0.0049 |
| 1860 | 0.0068 |
| 1870 | 0.0066 |
| 1880 | 0.0069 |
| 1890 | 0.0098 |
| 1900 | 0.013 |
| 1910 | 0.023 |
| 1920 | 0.05 |
| 1930 | 0.081 |
| 1940 | 0.11 |
| 1950 | 0.14 |
| 1960 | 0.17 |
| 1970 | 0.2 |
| 1980 | 0.23 |
| 1990 | 0.26 |
| 2000 | 0.28 |
| 2010 | 0.29 |
How is the noun zeta pronounced?
British English
U.S. English
Where does the noun zeta come from?
Earliest known use
Middle English
The earliest known use of the noun zeta is in the Middle English period (1150—1500).
OED's earliest evidence for zeta is from before 1425, in Mandeville's Travels.
zeta is of multiple origins. Partly a borrowing from Latin. Partly a borrowing from Greek.
Etymons: Latin zeta; Greek ζῆτα.
Nearby entries
- zerumbet, n.1640–
- zest, n.¹1674–
- zest, n.²1706
- zest, v.1702–
- zest, int.1705–22
- zester, n.1963–
- zestful, adj.1797–
- zestfully, adv.1843–
- zestiness, n.1912–
- zesty, adj.1826–
- zeta, n.¹?a1425–
- zeta, n.²1706–1860
- zetacism, n.1860–
- zeta function, n.1879–
- zeta-ic, adj.1840–1927
- zeta potential, n.1927–
- zetetic, adj. & n.1645–
- zetetical, adj. & n.1646–
- zetetically, adv.1665–
- Zetetical Society, n.1881–
- zetetics, n.1843–
Etymology
Summary
Meaning & use
- ?a1425–(The name of) the sixth letter (ζ, Ζ) of the Greek alphabet.In transliterating ancient Greek, usually rendered as z.
- ?a1425
If ȝe wil wit of þe abce of Grew and what kyn letters þai hafe, here ȝe may see þam and þer names also: alpha α, beta β, gamma γ, delta δ, e breuis ε, epissima ς, zeta ζ, [etc.].
Mandeville's Travels (Egerton MS.) (1889) 11 (Middle English Dictionary) - 1589
The letter zeta, of the Hebrewes & Greeke and of all other toungs is in truth but a double ss. hardly vttered.
G. Puttenham, Arte of English Poesie (new edition) ii. xi. sig. N*iv - 1640
The one [Consonant] we derive from the Greeke Letter Zeta, whose force it retaines: the other few Nations besides our owne are acquainted with, especially to make the use we doe of it.
S. Daines, Orthoepia Anglicana 18 - 1789
First, it is written, like other ancient inscriptions, in capitals... Secondly, the ancient form of the Pi is observed, and the prostrate Eta is used for the Zeta.
Critical Review vol. 67 494 - 1841
The Greek zeta is made in this form on some early monuments.
D. Sharpe in C. Fellows, Account Discov. Lycia 451 - 1953
He used a character like the Greek zeta for both s and z, which he identified with s.
R. F. Jones, Triumph of English Language v. 156 - 2014
Zetabyte..is from Greek zeta, the sixth letter of the Greek alphabet.
Courier Mail (Australia) (Nexis) 11 October (Lifestyle section) 18
- alphac1175–(The name of) the first letter (Α, α) of the Greek alphabet.
- muc1175–(The name of) the twelfth letter (μ, Μ) of the Greek alphabet.
- betaa1400–The second letter of the Greek alphabet, Β, β.
- taua1400–(The name of) the 19th letter of the Greek alphabet (Τ, τ).
- chic1400–The name of χ, the 22nd letter of the Greek alphabet; spec. used as the name of a moth having a marking of the form of this letter (in full, chi moth)…
- deltac1400–The name of the fourth letter of the Greek alphabet, having the form of a triangle (Δ), and the power of D.
- epsilonc1400–The fifth letter of the Greek alphabet (Ε, ε).
- etac1400–The name of the seventh letter (Η, η) of the Greek alphabet, corresponding to English e.
- kappac1400–The tenth letter of the Greek alphabet, Κ, κ.
- gamma?a1425–(The name of) the third letter (Γ, γ) of the Greek alphabet.
- lambda?a1425–(The name of) the 11th letter of the Greek alphabet (Λ, λ).
- nu?a1425–(The name of) the thirteenth letter (Ν, ν) of the Greek alphabet.
- phi?a1425–(The name of) the twenty-first letter (Φ, ϕ) of the Greek alphabet.
- pi?a1425–(The name of) the sixteenth letter (Π, π,) of the Greek alphabet.
- psi?a1425–(The name of) the twenty-third letter (Ψ, ψ) of the Greek alphabet.
- rho?a1425–(The name of) the seventeenth letter (Ρ, ρ) of the Greek alphabet.
- xi?a1425–(The name of) the fourteenth letter of the Greek alphabet (Ξ, ξ).
- zeta?a1425–(The name of) the sixth letter (ζ, Ζ) of the Greek alphabet.
- upsilon1559–(The name of) the 20th letter of the Greek alphabet, Υ, υ (originally V, Y). Cf. U, n.¹, V, n., and Y, n.
- san1584–The name (first recorded by writers of the sixth century b.c.) for a sibilant (?) found in early Doric scripts (later displaced by sigma), which…
- omega1599–(The name of) the last letter (Ω, ω) of the Greek alphabet.
- theta1603–The eighth letter of the Greek alphabet, Θ, θ (see th, n.¹).
- iota1607–The name of the Greek letter Ι, ι, corresponding to the Roman I, i; the smallest letter of the Greek alphabet.
- sigma1607–The name of the Greek letter Σ, σ, ς, the equivalent of the English S, s, in its uncial form having the shape of C.
- omicron?1632–(The name of) the fifteenth letter (Ο, ο) of the Greek alphabet, corresponding to the short o. Also figurative.
- Aeolic digamma1662–The sixth letter of the early Greek alphabet preserved in the Aeolic dialect (see digamma, n.).
- digamma1699–The sixth letter of the original Greek alphabet, corresponding to the Semitic waw or vau, which was afterwards disused, the sound expressed by it…
- zeta1850A kind of room or chamber.
Pronunciation
British English
U.S. English
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
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
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
Frequency
zeta typically occurs about 0.3 times per million words in modern written English.
zeta 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 of zeta, n.¹, 1760–2010
* 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 |
|---|---|
| 1760 | 0.014 |
| 1770 | 0.012 |
| 1780 | 0.011 |
| 1790 | 0.012 |
| 1800 | 0.0095 |
| 1810 | 0.01 |
| 1820 | 0.011 |
| 1830 | 0.0099 |
| 1840 | 0.0076 |
| 1850 | 0.0049 |
| 1860 | 0.0068 |
| 1870 | 0.0066 |
| 1880 | 0.0069 |
| 1890 | 0.0098 |
| 1900 | 0.013 |
| 1910 | 0.023 |
| 1920 | 0.05 |
| 1930 | 0.081 |
| 1940 | 0.11 |
| 1950 | 0.14 |
| 1960 | 0.17 |
| 1970 | 0.2 |
| 1980 | 0.23 |
| 1990 | 0.26 |
| 2000 | 0.28 |
| 2010 | 0.29 |
Frequency of zeta, n.¹, 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 | 0.02 |
| 2018 | 0.036 |
| 2019 | 0.054 |
| 2020 | 0.084 |
| 2021 | 0.11 |
| 2022 | 0.16 |
| 2023 | 0.18 |
| 2024 | 0.19 |
Compounds & derived words
- zeta-ic, adj. 1840–1927In or with reference to the work of English…
- zeta function, n. 1879–a. Any member of several families of functions…
- zeta potential, n. 1927–Electrokinetic potential, esp. (in a colloid) the…
- C.1.
- zeta function, n. 1879–a. Any member of several families of functions…
-
- C.2.
- zeta potential, n. 1927–Electrokinetic potential, esp. (in a colloid) the…
-