Compare Middle French, FrenchZénonien (1555 or earlier as noun, 1568 or earlier as adjective). Compare Hellenistic GreekΖηνώνειος (adjective) of or relating to Zeno, (noun) Stoic philosopher.
Meaning & use
adjective
1654–
Of or relating to Zeno of Citium (335–263 b.c.), or to the Stoic school of philosophy of which he was the founder. Cf. stoicn. A.1.
1654
That Zenonian Sect will hardly yield to moderate sentences in these matters.
Memorials Life & Death H. Grotius in C. Barksdale, translation of H. Grotius, Of Law of Warre & Peace sig. Xx 8v
1678
Even the Zenonian and Heraclitick Deity it self, was no other than such a Plastick Nature or Spermatick Principle in the Universe.
R. Cudworth, True Intellectual System of Universei. iii. 133
1694
Utrum, An Historical Grammar, and Posteriority, by the triad of Articles, might find some Line or Character of their Chronicle on the Zenonian Palm [French palme Zenonique].
P. A. Motteux, translation of F. Rabelais, 5th Book of Works 255
1828
According to Cicero, there was little originality in the Zenonian system.
New Monthly Magazinevol. 22 285
1872
His attributed taciturnity is but a zenonian virtue.
Little Rock (Arkansas) Daily Republican 24 December
1903
The splendour of the Zenonian stoicism.
H. Morselli, Suicide vi. 296
1961
Plato..differed from Zenonian Stoics.
Journal of History of Ideasvol. 22 5
2006
The beginning and ending of Cicero's list of Zenonian wisdom focus on the Stoic sage's rejection of forgiveness and flexibility.
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
Frequency
Zenonian typically occurs fewer than 0.01 times per million words in modern written English.
Zenonian 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 Zenonian, adj.¹ & n.¹, 1750–2010
* 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
1750
0.002
1760
0.0027
1770
0.0023
1780
0.0021
1790
0.0021
1800
0.0025
1810
0.0027
1820
0.0024
1830
0.0017
1840
0.0022
1850
0.0024
1860
0.0024
1870
0.0025
1880
0.0027
1890
0.0028
1900
0.0033
1910
0.0029
1920
0.0034
1930
0.0035
1940
0.0036
1950
0.0037
1960
0.004
1970
0.0039
1980
0.0042
1990
0.004
2000
0.0039
2010
0.0039
Zenonian, adj.¹ & n.¹ was revised in June 2018.
Zenonian, adj.¹ & n.¹ was last modified in July 2023.