A person who studies animals; an expert or specialist in zoology.
1663
The..liberty of making those Experiments in live Beasts..may enable a Zoologist..to determine divers Pathologicall difficulties.
R. Boyle, Some Considerations Usefulnesse Experimental Natural Philosophyii. ii. 46
1670
Nature having, as Zoologists teach us, furnished Ducks and other water-Fowl with a peculiar structure of some vessels about the heart.
R. Boyle in Philosophical Transactions (Royal Society) vol. 5 2011
1752
This..has been described..under the name of the Mus Africanus Hayopolin dictus. Most of the zoologists have omitted it.
J. Hill, General Natural Historyvol. III. 531
1773
Nor have I seen any thing that interested me, as a Zoologist, except an Otter.
S. Johnson, Letter 21 September (1992) vol. II. 78
1839
The Seladang is supposed by some zoologists to be identical with the Tapir.
T. J. Newbold, Political & Statistical Account Straits of Malaccavol. I. vii. 435
1870
The proverb says, ‘Ex pede Herculem’; and we have actual experience how the practised zoologist can build up some intricate organization from the sight of its smallest bone.
J. H. Newman, Essay Grammar of Assentii. viii. 253
1910
These are the reasons why zoologists and naturalists are anxious to save the whale.
Weekly Irish Times 8 October 7/4
1984
There were often slight differences between them, which interested the zoologists.
B. Heinrich, In Patch of Fireweed iii. 44
2015
McGavin, a distinguished zoologist..is devoted to anything that creeps and crawls.
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.
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.
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
1600s–
zoologist
1800s
zöologist
1800s–1900s
zoölogist
Frequency
zoologist typically occurs about 0.5 times per million words in modern written English.
zoologist 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 zoologist, n., 1750–2010
* 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
1750
0.062
1760
0.094
1770
0.091
1780
0.12
1790
0.14
1800
0.18
1810
0.26
1820
0.34
1830
0.44
1840
0.57
1850
0.67
1860
0.69
1870
0.79
1880
0.83
1890
0.85
1900
0.86
1910
0.88
1920
0.83
1930
0.84
1940
0.83
1950
0.8
1960
0.74
1970
0.68
1980
0.59
1990
0.5
2000
0.45
2010
0.43
Frequency of zoologist, 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.