Any (notional) list comprising only the very least celebrated or important members of a particular group; esp. used to emphasize extreme insignificance. Also in extended use.
1979
For those who care about the current ‘A’ list and the ‘Z’ list of who's in and out at ‘The Springs’, the Agnews are reportedly living a very private existence.
Washington Post 25 November F14
1988
I must have been on their ‘Z’ list in terms of choices for the role.
Toronto Star (Nexis) 26 March s11
2001
La Défense may have saved central Paris from invasion by office towers, and it looked great by night in Godard's movie Alphaville, yet it suffered, and continues to suffer, from the fact that a Z-list of architects was chosen to design the individual blocks.
Of or belonging to a Z-list; spec. designating or relating to a (notional) roster of the very least important individuals, esp. in the film or television industry; esp. used to emphasize extreme insignificance.
1985
They were up there, plodding through ‘Cover of Rolling Stone’, at some Z-list press torture.
R. Meltzer, Whore Just like Rest (2000) 3
1992
This shared, perverse, out-of-proportion affection for C-, D- and Z-list celebs reveals Stern and Mark and Brian as truly kindred spirits.
Los Angeles Times (Electronic edition) 27 November
1994
The loyalist golfer, A. C. Cowlings, becoming a star on the Z-list party circuit.
New York Review of Books 22 September 39/2
2001
Nobodies, who'd always thought they were somebody, suddenly realising they were nobody, and screaming horribly, as they embarked on their freefall descent into Z-list oblivion.
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
Frequency
Z-list typically occurs fewer than 0.01 times per million words in modern written English.
Z-list 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 data is computed programmatically, and should be regarded as an estimate.
Frequency of Z-list, n. & 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
0.0003
1980
0.0004
1990
0.0004
2000
0.0004
2010
0.0006
Frequency of Z-list, n. & 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
0.0083
2018
0.0075
2019
0.0066
2020
0.0088
2021
0.0055
2022
0.0051
2023
0.0052
2024
0.0058
Z-list, n. & adj. was first published in September 2002.
Z-list, n. & adj. was last modified in March 2025.