zakat, n.

zakat
http://www.oed.com/dictionary/zakat_n%3Ftab%3Dmeaning_and_use
Revised 2023

# zakatnoun

## Earlier version

- zakat in OED Second Edition (1989)

## Factsheet

### What does the noun zakat mean?

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

### How common is the noun zakat?

About 0.2occurrences per million words in modern written English

1810 | 0.003
1820 | 0.0025
1830 | 0.0021
1840 | 0.0019
1850 | 0.0027
1860 | 0.0023
1870 | 0.0025
1880 | 0.0045
1890 | 0.046
1900 | 0.047
1910 | 0.052
1920 | 0.061
1930 | 0.07
1940 | 0.056
1950 | 0.077
1960 | 0.11
1970 | 0.14
1980 | 0.18
1990 | 0.2
2000 | 0.23
2010 | 0.23

### How is the noun zakat pronounced?

#### British English

/zəˈkɑːt/
zuh-KAHT
/zəˈkat/
zuh-KAT

#### U.S. English

/zəˈkɑt/
zuh-KAHT

### Where does the noun zakat come from?

Earliest known use

mid 1600s

The earliest known use of the noun zakat is in the mid 1600s.

OED's earliest evidence for zakat is from 1668, in the writing of Paul Rycaut, diplomat and author.

zakat is of multiple origins. Partly a borrowing from Turkish. Partly a borrowing from Persian. Partly a borrowing from Arabic.

Etymons: Ottoman Turkish zekāt; Persian zakāt; Arabic zakāt-, zakāh.

### Nearby entries

1. Zahal, n. 1959–
2. zaibatsu, n. 1937–
3. Zaidi, n. 1709–
4. zaikai, n. 1968–
5. zaim, n. 1807–
6. zaire, n. 1967–
7. Zairean, n. & adj. 1972–
8. Zairese, adj. & n. 1974–
9. Zairois, n. & adj. 1973–
10. zaitech, n. 1986–
11. zakat, n.1668–
12. Zakka Khel, n. 1860–
13. zakuska, n. 1885–
14. zalambdodont, adj. 1885–
15. zalcitabine, n. 1991–
16. zamacueca, n. 1855–
17. Zamak, n. 1926–
18. zamang, n. 1819–
19. zamarra, n. 1841–
20. zama zama, n. 2006–
21. Zamazim, n. a1400–

## Etymology

### Summary

Of multiple origins. Partly a borrowing from Turkish. Partly a borrowing from Persian. Partly a borrowing from Arabic.
Etymons: Ottoman Turkish zekāt; Persian zakāt; Arabic zakāt-, zakāh.
< (i) Ottoman Turkish zekāt (Turkish zekât),

and its etymon (ii) Persian zakāt (11th cent. or earlier),

and that word's etymon (iii) Arabic zakāt-, zakāh (< Aramaic).

## Meaning & use

Islam.

1. 1668–
   An obligatory payment of a certain proportion of personal wealth to charitable or religious causes, made annually by every adult Muslim of sufficient means. Also: the act or duty of giving this charitable contribution.
   Zakat is one of the five pillars of Islam (see five pillars n.)
   1. 1668

      > To perform faithfully the Zekat, or giving of Alms according to the proportion prescribed in a certain Book.

      P. Rycaut, Present State of Ottoman Empire (new edition) ii. i. 98
   2. 1802

      > [Turkey.] This revenue is partly derived from..the zecchat.

      J. Pinkerton, Modern Geography vol. I. 452
   3. 1875

      > The zakát is a Mahommedan tax... It is one part in forty of all live-stock, and of merchandise entering the country.

      D. H. Bellew & E. F. Chapman in T. D. Forsyth, Report of Mission to Yarkund ii. 103
   4. 1957

      > In Mauretania those who are not liable to zakkat pay the personal tax and in addition a capitation fee on every animal.

      W. M. Hailey, African Survey (revised edition) x. 671
   5. 1979

      > According to Shi-ism zakat has to be an individual act of conscience and can never be levied compulsorily by the State.

      Observer 4 March 12/3
   6. 2003

      > Just do zakat, give the money to someone in need, okay?

      K. Hosseini, Kite Runner (2004) xiii. 159
   7. 2016

      > Alongside collecting donations and creating community projects, the National Zakat Foundation aims to raise awareness about the ethos and importance of zakat.

      S. Janmohamed, Generation M vii. 133
   economics and commerce Islam
   1. top-annual 1552–1751
      An annual rent payable on a building as distinct from the land on which it stands. Contrasted with ground-annual, n.
   2. indiction 1586–
      The decree or proclamation of the Roman Emperors fixing the valuation on which the property-tax was assessed at the beginning of each period of…
   3. zakat 1668–
      An obligatory payment of a certain proportion of personal wealth to charitable or religious causes, made annually by every adult Muslim of…
   4. premium 1859–
      A sum additional to interest, price, wages, or other fixed remuneration; any amount paid above the usual or nominal price; a sum added to an…
   5. betterment tax 1869–
      attributive in sense 1b, esp. with reference to the assessment of the effect on the value of property of improvements other than those made by its…
   View in Historical Thesaurus

## Pronunciation

### British English

/zəˈkɑːt/
zuh-KAHT
/zəˈkat/
zuh-KAT

### U.S. English

/zəˈkɑt/
zuh-KAHT

####

##### 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.

####

##### Consonants

- ppea
- ttea
- kkey
- bbuy
- ddye*
- ɡguy
- tʃchore
- dʒjay
- ffore
- θthaw
- ssore
- ʃshore
- vvee
- ðthee
- zzee
- ʒbeige
- xloch
- hhay
- llay
- rray
- wway
- jyore
- mmay
- nnay
- ŋsing

* /d/ also represents a 'tapped' /t/ as in

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.

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

## Forms

### Variant forms

1. 1600s–1700s
   zekat
2. 1700s–
   zakat
3. 1800s
   zecchat
4. 1900s–
   zakah, zakkat

## Frequency

zakat typically occurs about 0.2 times per million words in modern written English.

zakat 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 zakat, n., 1810–2010

* 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
--- | ---
1810 | 0.003
1820 | 0.0025
1830 | 0.0021
1840 | 0.0019
1850 | 0.0027
1860 | 0.0023
1870 | 0.0025
1880 | 0.0045
1890 | 0.046
1900 | 0.047
1910 | 0.052
1920 | 0.061
1930 | 0.07
1940 | 0.056
1950 | 0.077
1960 | 0.11
1970 | 0.14
1980 | 0.18
1990 | 0.2
2000 | 0.23
2010 | 0.23

### Frequency of zakat, 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 | 0.078
2018 | 0.091
2019 | 0.093
2020 | 0.1
2021 | 0.11
2022 | 0.11
2023 | 0.11
2024 | 0.11

zakat, n. was revised in December 2023.