< (i) Ottoman Turkishzekāt (Turkishzekât),and its etymon (ii) Persianzakāt (11th cent. or earlier),and that word's etymon (iii) Arabiczakāt-, zakāh (<Aramaic).
Meaning & use
Islam.
1668–
An obligatory payment of a certain proportion of personal wealth to charitable or religious causes, made annually by every adult Muslim of sufficient means. Also: the act or duty of giving this charitable contribution.
Zakat is one of the five pillars of Islam (see five pillarsn.)
1668
To perform faithfully the Zekat, or giving of Alms according to the proportion prescribed in a certain Book.
P. Rycaut, Present State of Ottoman Empire (new edition) ii. i. 98
1802
[Turkey.] This revenue is partly derived from..the zecchat.
J. Pinkerton, Modern Geographyvol. I. 452
1875
The zakát is a Mahommedan tax... It is one part in forty of all live-stock, and of merchandise entering the country.
D. H. Bellew & E. F. Chapman in T. D. Forsyth, Report of Mission to Yarkund ii. 103
1957
In Mauretania those who are not liable to zakkat pay the personal tax and in addition a capitation fee on every animal.
W. M. Hailey, African Survey (revised edition) x. 671
1979
According to Shi-ism zakat has to be an individual act of conscience and can never be levied compulsorily by the State.
Observer 4 March 12/3
2003
Just do zakat, give the money to someone in need, okay?
K. Hosseini, Kite Runner (2004) xiii. 159
2016
Alongside collecting donations and creating community projects, the National Zakat Foundation aims to raise awareness about the ethos and importance of zakat.
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
Forms
Variant forms
1600s–1700s
zekat
1700s–
zakat
1800s
zecchat
1900s–
zakah, zakkat
Frequency
zakat typically occurs about 0.2 times per million words in modern written English.
zakat is in frequency band 4, which contains words occurring between 0.1 and 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 zakat, n., 1810–2010
* 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
1810
0.003
1820
0.0025
1830
0.0021
1840
0.0019
1850
0.0027
1860
0.0023
1870
0.0025
1880
0.0045
1890
0.046
1900
0.047
1910
0.052
1920
0.061
1930
0.07
1940
0.056
1950
0.077
1960
0.11
1970
0.14
1980
0.18
1990
0.2
2000
0.23
2010
0.23
Frequency of zakat, 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.