Ziehl-Neelsen, n.

ziehl-neelsen
http://www.oed.com/dictionary/ziehl-neelsen_n%3Ftab%3Dmeaning_and_use
First published 1986; not fully revised

# Ziehl-Neelsennoun

## Factsheet

### What does the noun Ziehl-Neelsen mean?

There is one meaning in OED's entry for the noun Ziehl-Neelsen. See ‘Meaning & use’ for definition, usage, and quotation evidence.

#### Entry status

OED is undergoing a continuous programme of revision to modernize and improve definitions. This entry has not yet been fully revised.

### How common is the noun Ziehl-Neelsen?

About 0.04occurrences per million words in modern written English

1890 | 0.038
1900 | 0.039
1910 | 0.048
1920 | 0.053
1930 | 0.06
1940 | 0.061
1950 | 0.058
1960 | 0.057
1970 | 0.055
1980 | 0.045
1990 | 0.039
2000 | 0.032
2010 | 0.029

### Where does the noun Ziehl-Neelsen come from?

Earliest known use

1890s

The earliest known use of the noun Ziehl-Neelsen is in the 1890s.

OED's earliest evidence for Ziehl-Neelsen is from 1892, in the writing of George Sternberg.

### Nearby entries

1. zibeline, n. 1585–
2. zibet, n. 1594–
3. zibet-muff, n. 1685
4. zibib, n. 1836–
5. ziczac, n. 1844–
6. zidovudine, n. 1987–
7. Ziegfeld, n. 1913–
8. Ziegler, n. 1957–
9. Ziegler-Natta, n. 1965–
10. Ziehl, n. 1892–
11. Ziehl-Neelsen, n.1892–
12. ziff, n. 1917–
13. ZIFT, n. 1988–
14. zig, n. 1978–
15. zig, v. 1969–
16. Zigeuner, n. & adj. 1802–
17. Zigeunerin, n. 1845–83
18. ziggety, int., adj., & adv. 1924–
19. ziggurat, n. 1873–
20. zigzag, n., adj., & adv. 1712–
21. zigzag, v. 1777–

## Etymology

F. K. A. Neelsen (1854–94), German bacteriologist.

## Meaning & use

Bacteriology.

1. 1892–
   Applied to a method for identifying acid-fast organisms such as tubercle bacilli by staining with Ziehl's stain, decolorizing with sulfuric acid (and sometimes also alcohol), and counterstaining with methylene blue: acid-fast organisms retain the original red colour.
   1. 1892

      > The Ziehl-Neelson [sic] method.

      G. M. Sternberg, Manual of Bacteriology i. iv. 30 (heading)
   2. 1974

      > Mycobacterium..tuberculosis..stained by the Ziehl-Neelsen method is acid-fast and alcohol-fast.

      R. M. Kirk et al., Surgery ii. 21
   bacteria
   1. stained 1889–
      Prepared with a staining preparation, esp. for microscopic observation.
   2. Ziehl-Neelsen 1892–
      Applied to a method for identifying acid-fast organisms such as tubercle bacilli by staining with Ziehl's stain, decolorizing with sulfuric acid…
   3. cyanophilous 1895–
      Readily stained by blue and green dyes.
   4. trichrome 1918–
      = trichromatic, adj.; spec. applied to a stain and method of staining in which different kinds of tissue are stained in one or other of three…
   5. polychromed 1924–
      Biology. Of a stain or dye: converted to a polychrome form. Now rare.
   6. Feulgen 1928–
      Used attributively or occasionally in the possessive to denote the methods and materials used by Feulgen, and the reaction involved, in…
   7. destained 1930–
   8. cytophotometric 1952–
      Of or relating to cytophotometry; involving the use of a cytophotometer.
   9. immunofluorescent 1959–
      Of, relating to, or using immunofluorescence; exhibiting immunofluorescence.
   View in Historical Thesaurus

## Frequency

Ziehl-Neelsen typically occurs about 0.04 times per million words in modern written English.

Ziehl-Neelsen 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 Ziehl-Neelsen, n., 1890–2010

* 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
--- | ---
1890 | 0.038
1900 | 0.039
1910 | 0.048
1920 | 0.053
1930 | 0.06
1940 | 0.061
1950 | 0.058
1960 | 0.057
1970 | 0.055
1980 | 0.045
1990 | 0.039
2000 | 0.032
2010 | 0.029

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

Ziehl, n. was first published in 1986; not fully revised.