zymosan, n.

zymosan
http://www.oed.com/dictionary/zymosan_n%3Ftab%3Dmeaning_and_use
First published 1986; not fully revised

# zymosannoun

## Earlier version

- zymosan in OED Second Edition (1989)

## Factsheet

### What does the noun zymosan mean?

There is one meaning in OED's entry for the noun zymosan. 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 zymosan?

About 0.06occurrences per million words in modern written English

1940 | 0.034
1950 | 0.053
1960 | 0.053
1970 | 0.049
1980 | 0.053
1990 | 0.058
2000 | 0.06
2010 | 0.058

### How is the noun zymosan pronounced?

#### British English

/ˈzʌɪməʊsan/
ZIGH-moh-san

### Where does the noun zymosan come from?

Earliest known use

1940s

The earliest known use of the noun zymosan is in the 1940s.

OED's earliest evidence for zymosan is from 1943, in a paper by E. E. Ecker et al.

zymosan is formed within English, by derivation.

Etymons: zymo- comb. form, English ‑san.

### Nearby entries

1. zymological, adj. 1828–
2. zymologist, n. 1828–
3. zymology, n. 1753–
4. zymolysis, n. 1890–
5. zymolytic, adj. 1890–
6. zymome, n. 1820–31
7. zymometer, n. 1842–
8. zymophore, adj. 1900–
9. zymophoric, adj. 1902–
10. zymophyte, n. 1890–
11. zymosan, n.1943–
12. zymoscope, n. 1868–
13. zymosimeter, n. 1704–
14. zymosis, n. 1842–
15. zymotechnic, adj. 1896–
16. zymotechnical, adj. 1900–
17. zymotechnologist, n. 1896–
18. zymotechny, n. 1860–
19. zymotic, adj. & n. 1842–
20. zymotoxic, adj. 1902–
21. zymurgy, n. 1868–

## Etymology

### Summary

Formed within English, by derivation.
Etymons: zymo- comb. form, English ‑san.
< zymo- comb. form + ‑san, after glucosan, hexosan.

## Meaning & use

Biochemistry.

1. 1943–
   An insoluble polysaccharide of the cell wall of yeast, used in the assay of properdin.
   1. 1943

      > The preparation of human complement lacking in third component. The third component is specifically removed from or inactivated in human serum by the insoluble carbohydrate prepared from fresh yeast... The insoluble carbohydrate is hereafter referred to as ‘zymosan’.

      E. E. Ecker et al. in Journal of Immunology vol. XLVII. 185
   2. 1973

      > The incubation of normal blood serum..with certain polysaccharides derived from microbial cells (such as zymosan, a carbohydrate of the yeast cell membrane) gives rise to enzymes that activate the complement factors C3 and C5.

      Scientific American November 60/3
   organic chemistry
   1. trehalose 1862–
      A white crystalline sugar, C12H22O11.2H2O, obtained by Berthelot in 1857 from trehala.
   2. triticin 1874–
      A carbohydrate, C12H22O11 or (C6H10O5)n, obtained from the roots of couch-grass, Triticum repens, and so named by Müller (Arch. Pharm. (1873) II…
   3. galactin 1882–
      A plant polysaccharide consisting of galactose residues; = galactan, n. Now disused.
   4. callose 1890–
      A polysaccharide found in higher plants as a constituent of certain types of cell wall, and deposited on parts of the plasma membrane in response…
   5. floridean starch 1902–
      Of or pertaining to the Florideæ (cf. florideous, adj.) (now often considered a subclass of the Rhodophyceæ or red algæ); floridean starch, a…
   6. levan 1902–
      A lævulosan (fructan); esp. any fructan of the kind produced by certain bacteria, in which the linking of adjacent fructose units is between the…
   7. leucosin 1914–
      A polysaccharide occurring in food storage vesicles in some of the golden algae, now regarded as related to laminaran.
   8. arabinogalactan 1928–
      Any of a class of neutral polysaccharides composed of arabinose and galactose units and found in the cell walls of plants and mycobacteria.
   9. laminarin 1934–
      = laminaran, n.
   10. glucan 1943–
       A polysaccharide consisting entirely or chiefly of glucose residues, such as cellulose and starch; = glucosan, n. 2.
   11. zymosan 1943–
       An insoluble polysaccharide of the cell wall of yeast, used in the assay of properdin.
   12. agarose 1953–
       A polysaccharide which is the main constituent of agar and consists of alternating residues of d-galactose and 3,6-anhydro-l-galactose.
   13. laminaran 1961–
       A polysaccharide that consists chiefly of glucose residues and occurs in seaweeds of the genus Laminaria and other brown algae.
   View in Historical Thesaurus

## Pronunciation

### British English

/ˈzʌɪməʊsan/
ZIGH-moh-san

####

##### 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.

####

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

zymosan typically occurs about 0.06 times per million words in modern written English.

zymosan 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 zymosan, n., 1940–2010

* 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
--- | ---
1940 | 0.034
1950 | 0.053
1960 | 0.053
1970 | 0.049
1980 | 0.053
1990 | 0.058
2000 | 0.06
2010 | 0.058

### Frequency of zymosan, 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.

Period | Frequency per million words
--- | ---
2017 | 0.0013
2018 | 0.0017
2019 | 0.0046
2020 | 0.0063
2021 | 0.0067
2022 | 0.0098
2023 | 0.011
2024 | 0.0099

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

zymosan, n. was last modified in December 2024.