zygotic, adj.

zygotic
http://www.oed.com/dictionary/zygotic_adj%3Ftab%3Dmeaning_and_use
First published 1921; not fully revised

# zygoticadjective

## Factsheet

### What does the adjective zygotic mean?

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

#### Entry status

OED is undergoing a continuous programme of revision to modernize and improve definitions. This entry has not yet been fully revised.

### How common is the adjective zygotic?

About 0.1occurrences per million words in modern written English

1900 | 0.031
1910 | 0.041
1920 | 0.044
1930 | 0.056
1940 | 0.063
1950 | 0.071
1960 | 0.079
1970 | 0.1
1980 | 0.11
1990 | 0.12
2000 | 0.14
2010 | 0.14

### How is the adjective zygotic pronounced?

#### British English

/zʌɪˈɡɒtɪk/
zigh-GOT-ik

#### U.S. English

/ˌzaɪˈɡɑdɪk/
zigh-GAH-dick

### Where does the adjective zygotic come from?

Earliest known use

1900s

The earliest known use of the adjective zygotic is in the 1900s.

OED's earliest evidence for zygotic is from 1909, in the writing of W. E. Castle.

### Nearby entries

1. zygosphene, n. 1854–
2. zygosphere, n. 1880–
3. zygospondyline, adj. 1892–
4. zygospore, n. 1864–
5. zygosporic, adj. 1906–
6. zygostat, n. 1623
7. zygostatical, adj. 1656
8. zygostyle, n. 1881–
9. zygote, n. 1891–
10. zygotene, n. 1911–
11. zygotic, adj.1909–
12. -zygotic, comb. form
13. zygotically, adv. 1915–
14. zygotoblast, n. 1899–
15. zygotoid, n. 1891–
16. zygotomere, n. 1899–
17. -zygous, comb. form
18. zygozoospore, n. 1881–
19. Zyklon, n. 1939–
20. zymad, n. 1885–
21. zymase, n. 1875–

## Meaning & use

Biology.

1. 1909–
   Pertaining to or of the nature of a zygote, produced or characterized by zygosis.
   1. 1909

      > The enumeration of the conceivable different varieties of gray rabbit, all alike in appearance but all different in breeding capacity, i.e., of different zygotic formula.

      W. E. Castle, Stud. Inheritance in Rabbits (Carnegie Inst. Publ. No. 114) 58
   2. 1977

      > The second phase of embryology begins, controlled by zygotic genes.

      J. Cohen, Reproduction ix. 163
   life sciences physiology
   1. syngamic 1904–
   2. syngamous 1904–
   3. zygotic 1909–
      Pertaining to or of the nature of a zygote, produced or characterized by zygosis.
   View in Historical Thesaurus

## Pronunciation

### British English

/zʌɪˈɡɒtɪk/
zigh-GOT-ik

### U.S. English

/ˌzaɪˈɡɑdɪk/
zigh-GAH-dick

####

##### 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

zygotic typically occurs about 0.1 times per million words in modern written English.

zygotic 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 zygotic, adj., 1900–2010

* 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
--- | ---
1900 | 0.031
1910 | 0.041
1920 | 0.044
1930 | 0.056
1940 | 0.063
1950 | 0.071
1960 | 0.079
1970 | 0.1
1980 | 0.11
1990 | 0.12
2000 | 0.14
2010 | 0.14

### Frequency of zygotic, 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 | 0.0051
2018 | 0.006
2019 | 0.0098
2020 | 0.015
2021 | 0.016
2022 | 0.021
2023 | 0.024
2024 | 0.024

Originally published as part of the entry for zygote, n.

zygote, n. was first published in 1921; not fully revised.