zitheristnoun
Factsheet
What does the noun zitherist mean?
There is one meaning in OED's entry for the noun zitherist. See ‘Meaning & use’ for definition, usage, and quotation evidence.
How common is the noun zitherist?
| 1860 | 0.0002 |
| 1870 | 0.0002 |
| 1880 | 0.0002 |
| 1890 | 0.0003 |
| 1900 | 0.0003 |
| 1910 | 0.0003 |
| 1920 | 0.0003 |
| 1930 | 0.0004 |
| 1940 | 0.0004 |
| 1950 | 0.0004 |
| 1960 | 0.0003 |
| 1970 | 0.0003 |
| 1980 | 0.0003 |
| 1990 | 0.0003 |
| 2000 | 0.0003 |
| 2010 | 0.0003 |
Where does the noun zitherist come from?
Earliest known use
1860s
The earliest known use of the noun zitherist is in the 1860s.
OED's earliest evidence for zitherist is from 1866, in the writing of Anthony Trollope, novelist.
Nearby entries
- zirkelite, n.1895–
- zit, n.1912–
- zit cream, n.1968–
- zitella, n.a1660–
- zit-face, n.1974–
- zit-faced, adj.1971–
- zither, n.1831–
- zither, v.1889–
- zither banjo, n.1888–
- zithering, adj.1889–
- zitherist, n.1866–
- zither-like, adj.1881–
- ziti, n.1845–
- zitty, adj.1971–
- Ziv, n.a1382–
- zizania, n.1526–
- zizany, n.a1400–1803
- zizel, n.1775–
- zizypha, n.1546–1775
- zizyphus, n.?1440–
- zizz, v.1883–
Meaning & use
- 1866–A person who plays the zither.Stressed as ˈzitherist.
- 1866
The zither was brought forward, and a chair was put for the zitherist, and Herr Crippel stood for a moment behind his chair and bowed.
A. Trollope in Every Saturday 28 July 101/2 - 2017
The pianist and zitherist Laraaji, who..released some twenty albums in the eighties.
New Yorker (Nexis) 24 April 98
- zither player1850–General use as a modifier, and with verbal nouns and participles forming compounds in which zither expresses the object of the underlying verb, as in…
- zitherist1866–A person who plays the zither.
- guslar1891–One who plays the gusle; a singer of traditional epic poems.
Frequency
zitherist typically occurs fewer than 0.01 times per million words in modern written English.
zitherist is in frequency band 1, which contains words occurring fewer than 0.001 times per million words in modern written English. More about OED's frequency bands
Frequency of zitherist, n., 1860–2010
* 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 |
|---|---|
| 1860 | 0.0002 |
| 1870 | 0.0002 |
| 1880 | 0.0002 |
| 1890 | 0.0003 |
| 1900 | 0.0003 |
| 1910 | 0.0003 |
| 1920 | 0.0003 |
| 1930 | 0.0004 |
| 1940 | 0.0004 |
| 1950 | 0.0004 |
| 1960 | 0.0003 |
| 1970 | 0.0003 |
| 1980 | 0.0003 |
| 1990 | 0.0003 |
| 2000 | 0.0003 |
| 2010 | 0.0003 |