<modern Latinzygomaticus, <Greekζύγωμα, ‑ατ‑: see zygoman. and ‑icsuffix.
Meaning & use
Anatomy.
adjective
1712–
Pertaining to or forming part of the zygoma; jugal.
zygomatic apophysisnoun = zygomatic processn.zygomatic archnoun = zygoman.zygomatic bonenoun the malar bone.zygomatic fossanoun an irregularly-shaped cavity on the side of the skull below and within the zygomatic arch.zygomatic musclenoun any one of several small muscles connected with the zygoma; esp. each of two pairs of muscles (zygomaticus major and minor) arising from the malar bone and inserted at the corners of the mouth, serving to draw the upper lip outward and upward.zygomatic processnoun a process of the squamosal portion of the temporal bone, which articulates with the malar bone.zygomatic suturenoun the suture connecting the squamosal with the malar bone.
1712
Two Zygomatic Bones.
P. Blair in Philosophical Transactions 1710–12 (Royal Society) vol. 27 143
1741
Immediately before the Root of the zygomatic Process.
A. Monro, Anatomy of Human Bones (ed. 3) 95
1811
The zygomatic muscles pull the angles of the mouth upwards as in laughter.
C. Bell, Anatomy of Human Body (ed. 3) vol. I. 180
1825
The zygomatic arch.
Zoological Journalvol. 2 162
1855
The ‘zygomatic fossa’ is bounded externally by the zygomatic arch.
L. Holden, Human Osteology
1895
That ‘sweet contraction’ of the zygomatic muscles.
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
Frequency
zygomatic typically occurs about 0.5 times per million words in modern written English.
zygomatic 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 zygomatic, adj. & 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
0.057
1760
0.05
1770
0.044
1780
0.053
1790
0.094
1800
0.13
1810
0.21
1820
0.32
1830
0.36
1840
0.42
1850
0.47
1860
0.48
1870
0.47
1880
0.51
1890
0.54
1900
0.53
1910
0.55
1920
0.58
1930
0.61
1940
0.59
1950
0.62
1960
0.62
1970
0.6
1980
0.54
1990
0.5
2000
0.48
2010
0.45
Frequency of zygomatic, adj. & 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.