zero-rated, adj.

zero-rated
http://www.oed.com/dictionary/zero-rated_adj%3Ftab%3Dmeaning_and_use
Revised 2018

# zero-ratedadjective

## Factsheet

### What does the adjective zero-rated mean?

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

### How common is the adjective zero-rated?

About 0.01occurrences per million words in modern written English

2017 | 0.16
2018 | 0.16
2019 | 0.15
2020 | 0.14
2021 | 0.11
2022 | 0.1
2023 | 0.092
2024 | 0.086

### Where does the adjective zero-rated come from?

Earliest known use

1970s

The earliest known use of the adjective zero-rated is in the 1970s.

OED's earliest evidence for zero-rated is from 1972, in the Daily Telegraph (London).

### Nearby entries

1. zero norm, n. 1966–
2. zero option, n. 1976–
3. zero-order, adj. 1919–
4. zero plane, n. 1842–
5. zero point, n. 1789–
6. zero-point energy, n. 1913–
7. zero population growth, n. 1955–
8. zero post, n. 1908–
9. zero-power, adj. 1950–
10. zero-rate, v. 1972–
11. zero-rated, adj.1972–
12. zero rating, n. 1971–
13. zero sound, n. 1957–
14. zero-sum, adj. 1944–
15. zeroth, adj. 1850–
16. zero tillage, n. 1963–
17. zero tolerance, n. 1940–
18. zerovalent, adj. 1906–
19. zero waste, adj. & n. 1974–
20. zero-zero, adj. & n. 1930–
21. zerumbet, n. 1640–

## Meaning & use

1. 1972–
   (Of a product or service) having a rate of value added tax or other sales tax set at zero.
   1. 1972

      > A firm which supplies zero-rated goods or services gets complete relief from Value Added Tax both on its purchases and on its sales.

      Daily Telegraph 22 March 17/4
   2. 1987

      > A firm selling zero-rated items is a registered taxpayer..and can therefore receive credits for taxes paid on purchases.

      C. E. McLure & M. A. Bloomfield, Value-added Tax vi. 72
   3. 2010

      > About £24bn could be raised by extending the current 17.5 per cent VAT rate to zero-rated items and domestic fuel.

      Financial Times 7 June 4/5
   economics and commerce
   1. zero-rated 1972–
      (Of a product or service) having a rate of value added tax or other sales tax set at zero.
   View in Historical Thesaurus

## Frequency

zero-rated typically occurs about 0.01 times per million words in modern written English.

zero-rated 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 zero-rated, adj., 1970–2010

* 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
--- | ---
1970 | 0.013
1980 | 0.015
1990 | 0.015
2000 | 0.015
2010 | 0.017

### Frequency of zero-rated, adj., 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 | 0.16
2018 | 0.16
2019 | 0.15
2020 | 0.14
2021 | 0.11
2022 | 0.1
2023 | 0.092
2024 | 0.086

Originally published as part of the entry for zero, n. & adj.

zero, n. & adj. was revised in June 2018.