zoonoun
Meaning & use
- 1.a.1835–Originally colloquial. A park or similar place in which wild animals are kept in enclosures for study, conservation, or display to the public. Cf. zoological garden n.Apparently first applied to the gardens of the Zoological Society of London at Regent's Park, which opened in 1828.The reference in quot. 1835 is to a fictional establishment, but the author states, ‘Getting up something of the same sort in London, I understand. Lost no time in taking our hint, eh..?’, with humorous allusion to the Regent's Park Zoo.Over time, the nature of the enclosures in which animals are kept in zoos has changed, and there is an increasing tendency to try to provide animals with greater space to roam, and habitats more closely resembling their natural terrain. In some cases this has led to establishments no longer being designated zoos: cf. safari park n., wildlife park n.
- 1835
Our Zoo is just between the Vale of Health and the new burying-ground.
New Monthly Magazine August 444 - c1847
We treated the Clifton Zoo much too contemptuously.
in Life & Letters (1878) vol. II. 216 - 1867
Everybody who is anybody goes on Sundays to the Zoo.
Punch 29 June 264/2 - 1906
A nice example of Geoffroy's Cat may now be seen in the Small Mammals' House at the Zoo.
Westminster Gazette 30 April 4/3 - 1940
I took her to the Central Park zoo, which she has always loved.
, Letter April (2002) 329 - 1964
A private zoo on Jersey in the Channel islands, which holds a collection of birds, animals and reptiles that civilization elsewhere threatens with extinction.
Science News Letter 25 January 60/2 - 2007
After you've taken them to the zoo, to football matches, to a pizza house, where do you go?
Independent 21 July 29/2
- 1.b.1910–A collection of animals of the sort maintained at such a location; (hence) any group of animals considered as particularly large or varied. Also figurative.
- 1910
He has been purchasing a whole ‘zoo’ of animals to be placed in Rock Springs park for the season.
Evening Review (E. Liverpool, Ohio) 23 May 1/7 - 1928
Dolls that walk, talk, go to sleep and stand alone—a whole zoo of animals—mechanical toys of every kind.
Helena (Montana) Independent 22 November 5/6 (advertisement) - 1953
The quarter inch of cortex has created..a dreadful zoo of verbal monsters.
, Power of Words i. i. 9 - 1993
A hull that is left in the water all year, especially in warm waters, attracts a living zoo of barnacles, tubeworms, freshwater zebra mussels and other wildlife.
New Scientist 22 May 21/1 - 2001
There are five children and a zoo of animals.
Veranda July 116/3
- 2.In extended use.
- 2.a.1885–Chiefly used somewhat contemptuously. A place where a large and diverse group of people assembles or can be found; a diverse group of this sort. Also: a place or situation considered to resemble a zoo in being noisy, chaotic, etc.
- 1885
It is the human ‘zoo’ of Coney Island.
New York World 23 August 20/4 - 1915
I was the principal object of attraction at the moment in Violet's zoo—I mean her convalescent home.
McClure's Magazine December 10/2 - 1917
I was at a gathering of a curious zoo of people known as the Omega Club, and was sitting on a mat..discussing psychical research with William Butler Yeats.
, Letter 23 March (1988) vol. I. 169 - 1929
The country is shown to be a veritable ‘Zoo,’ and numerous shooting incidents are described.
Journal Royal Inst. International Affairs vol. 8 656 - 1935
He passed through Oxford, gathering little but materials for his future monody on a moribund zoo of dons.
, Edward Gibbon & his Age 14 - 1987
‘There's a party upstairs,’ I said. ‘It's a kind of zoo, but...’
, Lincoln's Dreams (1991) i. 11 - 2008
Without some kind of obedience, 40 primary students would quickly turn the classroom into a zoo.
South China Morning Post (Nexis) 19 January 4
- 2.b.1933–Any large and diverse body of things; a varied collection or assemblage.particle zoo: see particle n.
- 1933
Unlike many works on government, this book is a veritable zoo of lively examples and not at all a morgue for facts.
Newsweek 26 August 32/1 - 1956
Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer..coined the term ‘sub-nuclear zoo’, to describe the particles which are the ‘atom's strange offspring’.
Science News Letter 21 April 244/1 - 1969
A whole zoo of platitudes and high-flown circularities masquerading as general laws.
Mind vol. 78 461 - 1990
By then, hundreds of quasars and quasarlike objects had been discovered, and the catalogues contained a whole zoo of objects with a confusing array of names.
& , Cosmic Coincidences (1991) vi. 161 - 2004
Scott's ‘phrasal analysis’ reveals a veritable zoo of amphibrachs, amphimacers, and antibacchic feet.
Modern Language Review vol. 99 281