zeppelin, v.

zeppelin
http://www.oed.com/dictionary/zeppelin_v%3Ftab%3Dmeaning_and_use
Revised 2014

# zeppelinverb

## Factsheet

### What does the verb zeppelin mean?

There are four meanings listed in OED's entry for the verb zeppelin. See ‘Meaning & use’ for definitions, usage, and quotation evidence.

This word is used in U.S. English.

zeppelin has developed meanings and uses in subjects including

baseball (1910s) air force (1910s)

### How common is the verb zeppelin?

About 0.08occurrences per million words in modern written English

1910 | 0.051
1920 | 0.047
1930 | 0.048
1940 | 0.051
1950 | 0.057
1960 | 0.065
1970 | 0.066
1980 | 0.073
1990 | 0.08
2000 | 0.086
2010 | 0.09

### How is the verb zeppelin pronounced?

#### British English

/ˈzɛpəlɪn/
ZEP-uh-lin
/ˈzɛpl̩ɪn/
ZEP-uhl-in

#### U.S. English

/ˈzɛp(ə)lən/
ZEP-uh-luhn

### Where does the verb zeppelin come from?

Earliest known use

1910s

The earliest known use of the verb zeppelin is in the 1910s.

OED's earliest evidence for zeppelin is from 1910, in Current Literature.

zeppelin is formed within English, by conversion.

Etymons: Zeppelin n.

### Nearby entries

1. zephyrine, adj. & n. 1819–
2. zephyring, adj. 1821–
3. zephyrless, adj. a1821–
4. zephyr-like, adv. & adj. 1765–
5. zephyr lily, n.?1877–
6. zephyrous, adj. a1750–
7. zephyry, adj. 1791–
8. Zepp, n. 1914–
9. Zepp, v. 1914–
10. Zeppelin, n. 1896–
11. zeppelin, v.1910–
12. Zeppelined, adj. 1915–
13. Zeppelining, n. 1915–
14. Zeppelinist, n. 1912–
15. Zeppelinistic, adj. 1930–
16. Zeppelinite, n. 1909–
17. zeppole, n. 1835–
18. zepto-, comb. form
19. zeranol, n. 1971–
20. zerda, n. 1780–1860
21. zerk, n. 1926–

## Etymology

### Summary

Formed within English, by conversion.
< Zeppelin n.

## Meaning & use

1. 1.
   Chiefly U.S.
   1. 1.a.
      1910–
      intransitive. To move in a manner reminiscent of a Zeppelin; esp. to soar, to be buoyant (literal and figurative).
      In early use chiefly with reference to a baseball.
      1. 1910

         > There was an awful groan as the bean Zeppelined over first base.

         Current Literature November 497/2
      2. 1915

         > White Sox pennant hopes Zeppelined yesterday when they trounced the Tigers.

         La Crosse (Wisconsin) Tribune 8 September 8/5
      3. 1920

         > Tea and tobacco..are among the commodities that have lately zeppelined in New Zealand.

         New Zealand Observer 31 January 7/
      4. 1933

         > The sun went down and a few indigo clouds zeppelined across the sky followed by a mist which turned into a fairly thick fog.

         C. Duff in W. L. H., Charles' Wain 71
      5. 2010

         > Another bee zeppelined by.

         M. Hooton, Deloume Road 35
      U.S. English
   2. 1.b.
      1911–
      intransitive. Baseball. To hit the ball high and long; esp. to hit a home run. Also transitive. Now apparently disused.
      1. 1911

         > Cranfill was first up..and he ‘Zeppelined’ one through the atmosphere at comet speed, which finally cast anchor on a neighboring farm.

         Daily Courier (New Castle, Indiana) 12 June 8/6
      2. 1915

         > Utley Zeppelined to Dunning.

         Daily Times Enterprise (Thomasville, Georgia) 31 May
      3. 1930

         > Schoffner zeppelined for the Indians in the eighth.

         Atlantic (Iowa) News-Tel. 11 July 6/3
      4. 1931

         > Ray Benge zeppelined in the eighth.

         Tyrone (Pennsylvania) Daily Herald 5 June 7/5
      baseball U.S. English disused
2. 1. 2.a.
      1915–
      transitive. To drop bombs on from a Zeppelin; to destroy in a Zeppelin raid. Frequently in passive. Now historical.
      1. 1915

         > London zeppelined again; dispatches hint heavy losses.

         Washington Herald 13 September 1/7 (heading)
      2. 1916

         > They will Zeppelin the fleet and walk through our army.

         H. G. Wells, Mr. Britling sees it Through i. v. §12
      3. 1928

         > They Zeppelined schools and sank hospital ships.

         Brownwood (Texas) Bulletin 8 December 8/5
      4. 2009

         > So we'd be able to discover who was missing like. If their house got Zeppelined, sir.

         G. Ison, Hardcastle's Mandarin 66
      air force historical
      1. Zepp 1915–
         transitive. = zeppelin, v. 2.
      2. zeppelin 1915–
         transitive. To drop bombs on from a Zeppelin; to destroy in a Zeppelin raid. Frequently in passive. Now historical.
      3. blitz 1939–
         transitive. To attack with a blitz; to hit, blast, destroy, etc., by an air-raid. Also intransitive.
      4. cluster bomb 1939–
         Originally: any of a large concentration of bombs dropped simultaneously or in quick succession, so as to cause extensive and widespread damage to…
      5. dive-bomb 1940–
         (transitive) to attack with bombs at a low level after diving.
      6. pattern-bomb 1943–
         transitive. To bomb (a target) from a number of aircraft in a predetermined pattern.
      7. atom-bomb 1945–
         transitive. To drop an atom bomb on.
      8. atomic-bomb 1945–
         transitive. = atom-bomb, v.
      9. firebomb 1945–
         transitive. To attack or destroy with firebombs or a firebomb. Also intransitive.
      10. cluster bomb 1953–
          transitive. To target or bomb (a place, etc.) with cluster bombs, with the aim of causing widespread damage as opposed to destroying a specific…
      View in Historical Thesaurus
   2. 2.b.
      1915–
      transitive. figurative. Now rare.
      1. 1915

         > He has been Zeppelined with association speeches. He has been submarined with expert essays.

         Modern Lumberman 125
      2. 1918

         > Don't allow yourself to be Zeppelined by unfounded fears, or submarined by false economy.

         New Country Life June 87/2

## Pronunciation

### British English

/ˈzɛpəlɪn/
ZEP-uh-lin
/ˈzɛpl̩ɪn/
ZEP-uhl-in

### U.S. English

/ˈzɛp(ə)lən/
ZEP-uh-luhn

####

##### 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

Also with capital initial.

## Frequency

zeppelin typically occurs about 0.08 times per million words in modern written English.

zeppelin 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 zeppelin, v., 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 | 0.051
1920 | 0.047
1930 | 0.048
1940 | 0.051
1950 | 0.057
1960 | 0.065
1970 | 0.066
1980 | 0.073
1990 | 0.08
2000 | 0.086
2010 | 0.09

## Compounds & derived words

Sort by

1. Zepp, v. 1914–
   transitive. = zeppelin, v. 2.

1. Zeppelined, adj. 1915–
   Subjected to bombing raids by Zeppelins…

1. Zeppelining, n. 1915–
   In the First World War (1914–18): the use of…

Originally published as part of the entry for Zeppelin, n.

zeppelin, v. was revised in June 2014.

zeppelin, v. was last modified in September 2024.