transitive. To give a zoological character to; to present or treat as animal-like; to consider in zoological terms; (also) to treat (a subject, question, etc.) in a zoological manner.
1830
He [sc. Landseer]zoologizes mankind.
Spectator 7 August 592/1
1893
M. Renan attempted a natural history of religions. De Lisle zoologised poetry.
Review of Reviews December 620/1
1912
Sex psychology may be over-emphasized..or even zoölogized.
Med. Council December 437/2
1999
The..danger of zoologizing child psychology.
M. J. Hall, translation of L. S. Vygotsky in R. W. Rieber & D. K. Robbins, Collected Works L. S. Vygotskyvol. VI. i. 5
2001
If other novelists are sometimes guilty of anthropomorphizing animals, Dreiser..indulges in zoologizing human beings.
intransitive. To engage in the study of zoology; esp. to look for animals in their natural habitats for the purpose of recording or studying them zoologically. Also occasionally transitive: to record or study (an animal or animals) zoologically; to record or study the fauna of (an area). Cf. botanizev.
1852
‘Zoologizing’ in Black Park, Bucks., (a place dear to London Entomologists,) in company with my late lamented friend.
Naturalistvol. 2 217
1861
He had botanized and zoologized..from the Shetlands to the Channel Isles.
A. Geikie, Memoir of Edward Forbes ix. 267
1890
I have just heard that Charles Lister..has died of fever in Brazil, where he was zoologising.
G. J. Romanes in Life & Letters (1896) 256
1901
To Zanzibar to zoologize zebras.
Brainerd (Minnesota) Daily Disp. 14 December 7/6
1911
While he is farming he zoologizes, and while he is zoologizing he is farming.
Alton (Illinois) Evening Telegraph 30 May 8/3
1961
Country gentlemen botanized and zoologized in the same spirit that they hunted and rode.
Chapters Western Civilization (ed. 3) vol. II. 257
2004
We do follow Darwin as he travels across the world..zoologizing.
Journal Hist. Biologyvol. 37 209
2007
You resist the ever-present temptation to over-engineer, over-botanize, or over-zoologize the wetlands.
W. J. Mitsch & J. G. Gosselink, Wetlands (ed. 4) xii. 378
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
1800s–1900s
zoölogize
1800s–
zoologise, zoologize
Frequency
zoologize typically occurs fewer than 0.01 times per million words in modern written English.
zoologize 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 zoologize, v., 1840–2010
* 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.