Acronym < the initial letters of zygote intra-fallopian transfer, after GIFTn.2
Meaning & use
1988–
A technique for facilitating human conception, in which zygotes resulting from in vitro fertilization are transferred directly into the Fallopian tubes of the prospective mother.
[1986
We report here what we think is the first pregnancy achieved after translaparoscopic zygote intrafallopian transfer.
Lancet 7 June 1329/1]
1988
Frozen zygotes were thawed and transferred to her patent fallopian tubes by laparoscopy on the third day of progesterone replacement by zygote intrafallopian transfer (ZIFT).
Lancet 9 April 835/2
1989
Patients undergoing the ZIFT procedure received a general anaesthetic after which a laparoscopy was performed and the fallopian tubes cannulated.
British Journal of Obstetrics & Gynaecologyvol. 96 1072/1
1991
On this occasion, I was being treated with a variation of Gift, called Zift,..in which the eggs and sperm are mixed outside the body and then replaced in the tube.
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.
ZIFT typically occurs about 0.03 times per million words in modern written English.
ZIFT 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 ZIFT, n., 1980–2010
* 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
1980
0.028
1990
0.028
2000
0.028
2010
0.028
ZIFT, n. was first published in 1993; not fully revised.