Of multiple origins. Partly a borrowing from Urdu. Partly a borrowing from Persian.
Etymons:Urduzinda bād; Persianzinda bād.
< (i) Urduzinda bād,and its etymon (ii) Persianzinda bād, both in the sense ‘may (he, etc.) live!’ <zinda alive (ultimately < the same Indo-European base as quickadj.) + bād let it be, early modern…
< (i) Urduzinda bād,and its etymon (ii) Persianzinda bād, both in the sense ‘may (he, etc.) live!’ <zinda alive (ultimately < the same Indo-European base as quickadj.) + bād let it be, early modern optative form (now only used in set formulae) of būdan to be (ultimately < the same Indo-European base as bev.).
Meaning & use
interjection
1930–
—— zindabad!: used, esp. in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, to affirm enduring support for the specified person or thing; long live —— !
1930
A procession of loyalists consisting of Sikhs, Hindus and Mahomedans paraded the bazars at Lyallpur carrying the Union Jack and shouting ‘Government Zindabad’.
Times of India 16 July 9/3
a1963
We had a steadily increasing crowd around us cheering and shouting: ‘Pakistan Zindabad, Jinnah Zindabad’, ‘Cunningham Governor Zindabad’.
G. Cunningham in N. Mitchell, Sir George Cunningham (1968) vii. 132
1988
At some places on the border the trains were stopped by mobs..heard to chant the slogan ‘Kashmir Day zindabad!’ (perhaps at that very moment, the crowds in Kashmir were shouting ‘Central Intelligence zindabad!’).
A. Ghosh, Shadow Lines (1989) 229
2018
‘Are you Pakistani?’ he asked abruptly. His wonderful smile reappeared. ‘Me too, fam. Pakistan zindabad!’ He punched the air and chuckled.
M. Khan, I am Thunder xi. 71
noun
1938–
In South Asian contexts: a shout of ‘zindabad’; a shout of approval or encouragement; a cheer.
1938
India's revolutionaries..need not confine their activities to strikes, flag-hoisting, and the shouting of all the various kinds of ‘Zindabads’, and the like.
Modern Review (India) vol. 64 521/1
1963
The students were squatting on the ground in the open space in the school and loudly greeted the President with jubilation and zindabads.
Indo-Iranica June 21
1985
He..asked the assembled taxi drivers to raise three zindabads for the nation's supreme leader.
N. Sahgal, Rich like Us xiii. 151
2001
The collective blood pressure had skyrocketed. No Zindabads were heard.
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
Also with capital initial.
Frequency
zindabad typically occurs fewer than 0.01 times per million words in modern written English.
zindabad is in frequency band 2, which contains words occurring between 0.001 and 0.01 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 zindabad, int. & n., 1930–2010
* 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
1930
0.0032
1940
0.0041
1950
0.0046
1960
0.0048
1970
0.0055
1980
0.0055
1990
0.0059
2000
0.0065
2010
0.0062
Frequency of zindabad, int. & 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
0.021
2018
0.028
2019
0.026
2020
0.027
2021
0.028
2022
0.024
2023
0.018
2024
0.018
zindabad, int. & n. was first published in December 2007.
zindabad, int. & n. was last modified in July 2023.