Not so much air As in the zoning of a summer's day.
J. Keats, Hyperion (new edition) 15 in Misc. Philobiblon Society (1856–7) vol. III
1888
What Mr. Lockyer has called the zoning of colour in the heavens.
Nature 5 July 225
1904
The zoning of the strata.
Edinburgh Review January 220
1942
Further steps, including the zoning of the distribution of manufactured goods..are being investigated by the Ministry.
Times 5 June 2/3
1945
In the zoning of Germany the United States Navy has been allotted the ports of Bremen and Bremerhaven.
Daily Telegraph 17 May 5/7
1946
The transport of food from production or import points to wholesalers' stores was effected by ‘zoning’ schemes... The country was divided into..zones, and movement between different zones..was allowed only by permit.
How Britain was fed in War Time (H.M.S.O.) iii. 22
1968
After the First World War... A new zoning law regulated the height of buildings in relation to the width of the streets.
(Town-)Planning. The regulation of land use by particular planning restrictions in designated areas. Originally U.S.
1912
In view of..existing indirect zoning laws, why not add some of the building laws in force in Frankfurt-on-the-Main?
Proceedings 4th Nat. Conference City Planning 190
1914
The well-established principle of zoning that has been in operation for a generation or more in that country [sc. Germany].
Proceedings 6th Nat. Conference City Planning 92
1921
‘Zoning’ means the locating of industries in the areas which are best suited for them and the reserving for housing of districts best adapted for this purpose.
Glasgow Herald 25 March 8/3
1940
The Town-Planning Act of 1932 perpetuated this cleavage... Now there was ‘zoning’..segregating families according to their incomes.
R. Graves & A. Hodge, Long Week-end xi. 175
1943
Some States have introduced compulsory ‘agricultural zoning’ by which certain types of farming are prohibited in certain areas.
J. S. Huxley, TVA 31
1966
The zoning game: municipal practices and policies.
R. F. Babcock(title)
1978
Crossing over to the rivers south of Annapolis,..Chris had a chance to see how lack of zoning and policing had encouraged this shoreline to become a marine slum.
Nigerian English. The system or practice of allocating nominations for certain political offices to candidates from particular regions, as part of an unofficial power-sharing arrangement within a political party, intended to produce balanced regional representation.
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.
/ɡb/ is often treated as a single sound, a simultaneous ‘double articulation’ of the two stop sounds.
Unlike in many other varieties of English, consonants cannot take on the function of vowels in West African English (there are no ‘syllabic consonants’).
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
zoning typically occurs about twice per million words in modern written English.
zoning is in frequency band 5, which contains words occurring between 1 and 10 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 zoning, n., 1820–2010
* 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
1820
0.0006
1830
0.0006
1840
0.0019
1850
0.002
1860
0.0025
1870
0.0015
1880
0.0032
1890
0.0043
1900
0.015
1910
0.22
1920
0.47
1930
0.8
1940
1.1
1950
1.4
1960
2.0
1970
2.3
1980
2.2
1990
1.8
2000
1.6
2010
1.5
Frequency of zoning, 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.