zero rating, n.

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

# zero ratingnoun

## Factsheet

### What does the noun zero rating mean?

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

### How common is the noun zero rating?

About 0.02occurrences per million words in modern written English

2017 | 0.17
2018 | 0.15
2019 | 0.15
2020 | 0.13
2021 | 0.11
2022 | 0.11
2023 | 0.11
2024 | 0.11

### Where does the noun zero rating come from?

Earliest known use

1970s

The earliest known use of the noun zero rating is in the 1970s.

OED's earliest evidence for zero rating is from 1971, in Nature: a weekly journal of science.

### Nearby entries

1. zero option, n. 1976–
2. zero-order, adj. 1919–
3. zero plane, n. 1842–
4. zero point, n. 1789–
5. zero-point energy, n. 1913–
6. zero population growth, n. 1955–
7. zero post, n. 1908–
8. zero-power, adj. 1950–
9. zero-rate, v. 1972–
10. zero-rated, adj. 1972–
11. zero rating, n.1971–
12. zero sound, n. 1957–
13. zero-sum, adj. 1944–
14. zeroth, adj. 1850–
15. zero tillage, n. 1963–
16. zero tolerance, n. 1940–
17. zerovalent, adj. 1906–
18. zero waste, adj. & n. 1974–
19. zero-zero, adj. & n. 1930–
20. zerumbet, n. 1640–
21. zest, n.¹ 1674–

## Meaning & use

1. 1971–
   A rating of zero for value added tax or other sales tax on a particular item; (also) the practice of assessing the value added tax or other sales tax at zero for a particular item.
   1. 1971

      > The recently reported claim of the salvage industries to be given zero rating for value-added tax..can also be extended.

      Nature 3 December 310/3
   2. 1984

      > Books are the essential tools of society and zero-rating is a very efficient way of encouraging their wide availability.

      Bookseller 3 November 1857/1
   3. 2014

      > There would be no zero rating on items such as food, children's clothing and shoes, prescriptions and books.

      Aberdeen Press & Journal 19 March (Features section) 28
   economics and commerce
   1. zero rating 1971–
      A rating of zero for value added tax or other sales tax on a particular item; (also) the practice of assessing the value added tax or other sales tax…
   View in Historical Thesaurus

## Frequency

zero rating typically occurs about 0.02 times per million words in modern written English.

zero rating 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 rating, n., 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 | 0.017
1980 | 0.016
1990 | 0.016
2000 | 0.016
2010 | 0.017

### Frequency of zero rating, 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.

Period | Frequency per million words
--- | ---
2017 | 0.17
2018 | 0.15
2019 | 0.15
2020 | 0.13
2021 | 0.11
2022 | 0.11
2023 | 0.11
2024 | 0.11

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

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