zester, n.

zester
http://www.oed.com/dictionary/zester_n%3Ftab%3Dmeaning_and_use
Revised 2018

# zesternoun

## Factsheet

### What does the noun zester mean?

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

### How common is the noun zester?

About 0.01occurrences per million words in modern written English

2017 | 0.0034
2018 | 0.0046
2019 | 0.0048
2020 | 0.0058
2021 | 0.0063
2022 | 0.0054
2023 | 0.0046
2024 | 0.0044

### How is the noun zester pronounced?

#### British English

/ˈzɛstə/
ZESS-tuh

#### U.S. English

/ˈzɛstər/
ZESS-tuhr

### Where does the noun zester come from?

Earliest known use

1960s

The earliest known use of the noun zester is in the 1960s.

OED's earliest evidence for zester is from 1963, in New York Times.

zester is formed within English, by derivation; perhaps modelled on a French lexical item.

Etymons: zest n.1, ‑er suffix1.

### Nearby entries

1. zero tillage, n. 1963–
2. zero tolerance, n. 1940–
3. zerovalent, adj. 1906–
4. zero waste, adj. & n. 1974–
5. zero-zero, adj. & n. 1930–
6. zerumbet, n. 1640–
7. zest, n.¹ 1674–
8. zest, n.² 1706
9. zest, v. 1702–
10. zest, int. 1705–22
11. zester, n.1963–
12. zestful, adj. 1797–
13. zestfully, adv. 1843–
14. zestiness, n. 1912–
15. zesty, adj. 1826–
16. zeta, n.¹?a1425–
17. zeta, n.² 1706–1860
18. zetacism, n. 1860–
19. zeta function, n. 1879–
20. zeta-ic, adj. 1840–1927
21. zeta potential, n. 1927–

## Etymology

### Summary

Formed within English, by derivation; perhaps modelled on a French lexical item.
Etymons: zest n.1, ‑er suffix1.
< zest n.1 + ‑er suffix1, perhaps after French zesteur (1908 or earlier).

Compare earlier zest v. 1.

## Meaning & use

Cookery.

1. 1963–
   A utensil designed to remove the outer rind of oranges, lemons, and other citrus fruit in thin shreds.
   1. 1963

      > Gadget known as a zester cuts lemon or orange rind into fine julienne strips.

      New York Times 5 December 60/3
   2. 1977

      > ‘Certain gadgets are stupid and certain gadgets make a lot of sense,’ Rapoport said as she brandished a lemon zester, which is on her approved list.

      Washington Post 28 July f1/4
   3. 1989

      > Using a zester, take strips of the skin downwards from each courgette then slice them diagonally.

      Decanter November 119/3
   4. 2008

      > Wash the lemons well, then thinly pare their zest with a vegetable peeler or zester.

      U. McGovern, Lost Crafts (2009) 126
   food and cooking
   1. nutcracker 1481–
      A device for cracking the shell of a nut to reach the kernel.
   2. nut-crack 1570–
      = nutcracker, n. I.1a. Now rare.
   3. nutcrackers 1600–
      In plural in same sense; applied spec. to such a device consisting of two pivoted limbs. Frequently as a pair of nutcrackers.
   4. cracker a1640–
      An instrument for cracking or crushing something; a crusher; spec. in plural nut-crackers.
   5. crack-nut 1656–
      A nut-cracker. Now dialect.
   6. corer 1679–
      An implement for removing the core of fruit. Cf. apple corer, n.
   7. orange-strainer 1688–
      A utensil for straining the juice of an orange.
   8. apple scoop 1696–
      A scoop or spoon, typically made of bone, used to bore into apples, esp. in order to remove the core.
   9. orange-peel cutter 1757–
      General attributive, as orange-peel cutter, orange-peel oil, orange-peel water, etc.
   10. apple corer 1778–
       An instrument for cutting out the core of apples.
   11. lemon-squeezer 1781–
       a. An instrument for expressing the juice from a lemon; also figurative; b. Australian and New Zealand colloquial, a hat with a peaked crown and…
   12. orange squeezer 1815–
   13. seeder 1865–
       Originally U.S. A device for extracting seeds from fruit. Cf. seed, v. 9.
   14. reamer 1894–
       Cookery (originally North American). A utensil or appliance for extracting juice from citrus fruit, typically having a conical, ridged projection…
   15. stemmer 1898–
       A machine for stemming grapes, etc.
   16. juicer 1938–
       An appliance used to extract juice from fruit and vegetables.
   17. zester 1963–
       A utensil designed to remove the outer rind of oranges, lemons, and other citrus fruit in thin shreds.
   View in Historical Thesaurus

## Pronunciation

### British English

/ˈzɛstə/
ZESS-tuh

### U.S. English

/ˈzɛstər/
ZESS-tuhr

####

##### 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

## Frequency

zester typically occurs about 0.01 times per million words in modern written English.

zester 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 zester, n., 1960–2010

* 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
--- | ---
1960 | 0.0056
1970 | 0.0076
1980 | 0.009
1990 | 0.009
2000 | 0.011
2010 | 0.013

### Frequency of zester, 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 | 0.0034
2018 | 0.0046
2019 | 0.0048
2020 | 0.0058
2021 | 0.0063
2022 | 0.0054
2023 | 0.0046
2024 | 0.0044

zester, n. was revised in June 2018.

zester, n. was last modified in July 2023.