It is not certain that sense 1 shows the same word as the later senses; it could perhaps have originated as a call in the game described in the note at that sense (perhaps compare the colloquial pronunciations reflected by howzitint. and howzatint.).
The β forms (occasionally used with singular agreement or in the plural zitzes) originated as alternative spellings of the plural form zits.
Meaning & use
slang (originally U.S.).
1.
1912–
Chiefly U.S. (south-western). A man's facial hair, spec. a type of small, neat moustache. Chiefly in plural with singular agreement, esp. in form zitz.
The word is attested earliest in the context of a game, known as zits, in which players accumulated points by spotting men with different types of facial hair, a higher value being accorded to particularly long or unusual styles (cf. quot. 1912).
1912
Ten point zit.
Los Angeles Evening Herald 30 July (Last edition) 2/3 (caption)
1925
Mack's ‘brush’ was that famous mustache which at one time was the only competitor in popular laugh-interest to Charlie's [sc. Charlie Chaplin] ‘zitz’.
Madera (California) Mercury 11 September 2/5
1971
[He] had a zitz mustache and there was a brief case in his baggage.
Chiefly U.S. (south-western). A man's facial hair, spec. a type of small, neat moustache. Chiefly in plural with singular agreement, esp. in form zitz…
Chiefly U.S. (south-western). A man's facial hair, spec. a type of small, neat moustache. Chiefly in plural with singular agreement, esp. in form zitz…
A small, inflamed spot on the skin; a pimple. Also figurative.
Now the main sense.
1965
‘Zits’ Blitz!—Acne ‘sitz’ (pimples) disappear like magic with constant use of the Alphacene twins—Cleanser & Treatment, the newest, most complete treatment available today for acne and acne pimples.
Sacramento (California) Bee 17 July a4/8 (advertisement)
1966
Last Easter he brought me a big chocolate bunny and I had zits for three weeks.
Oakland (California) Tribune 9 April b6
1986
To know that one of the anarchist icons had her share of emotional zits and warts was very comforting.
Open Road Spring 8/3
1989
The years of zits finally did disappear and we entered that wild and free period of exploration that comes with leaving school.
Canberra Times 4 July 19/4
2011
I think I'm getting a zit. Right on the end of my nose as well.
Medicine. A small, solid, rounded or somewhat pointed swelling on the skin (or, less commonly, a mucous membrane), often forming part of a rash. Cf. p…
It is unclear whether quot. 1966 is a figurative use of sense 2, or conversely whether sense 2 is a specific example of the sense described in quot. 1966.
1966
Zit, something bad or unpleasant... What's that zit on your coat?
Current Slang (University South Dakota) Summer 5
1977
Zit n, reddish mark caused by kissing. ‘She has a big zit on her neck.’
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
zit typically occurs about 0.1 times per million words in modern written English.
zit 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 zit, n., 1910–2010
* 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
1910
0.031
1920
0.031
1930
0.032
1940
0.036
1950
0.042
1960
0.047
1970
0.061
1980
0.081
1990
0.1
2000
0.11
2010
0.13
Frequency of zit, 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.