Of atmospheric conditions: characterized by or having both a zero cloud ceiling and zero (horizontal and vertical) visibility; (of a landing or other manoeuvre) carried out in such conditions. Also: designating visibility which is effectively zero in both horizontal and vertical directions.
1930
The Boeing radio station here stated that Caldwell was flying in ‘zero zero’ weather, meaning there was neither ceiling nor visibility, and Caldwell could not see the ground when he landed.
Greeley (Colorado) Daily Tribune 16 October 1/3
1947
There are few greater nervous strains than that experienced by a pilot of a transport in deciding to switch over from instruments and manually bring the ship in these last few hundred feet when visibility is ‘zero-zero’.
Shell Aviation News November 7/2
1967
Category 3C represents visibility of less than 50 metres and includes ‘zero-zero’ conditions under which safety experts believe operations will not be possible for a very long time.
Times Review of Industry June 53/1
2002
This newest of Boeing 747s had the capability, and the trained crew, to make a zero-zero landing.
Designating an ejection seat that can eject a person safely even when the aircraft is on the ground and stationary (i.e. at zero altitude and zero velocity).
1961
The most interesting item in the Martin-Baker Aircraft Co., Ltd., display..is the prototype rocket-assisted ‘zero-zero’ ejection seat for VTOL aircraft.
Aeroplanevol. 100 593/2
1977
They had explained to him the controls of his zero-zero ejection seat.
P. Way, Super-Celeste 215
1996
A seat lofts a pilot from an aircraft at zero forward speed and zero altitude (the so-called zero-zero seat) to an altitude at which the parachute can deploy safely.
New Scientist 21 September 89/3
2009
The unreliability of the T-40 engine and lack of an effective zero-zero ejection seat helped kill the turboprop ‘tail-sitter’.
J. Winchester, World's Worst Aircraft (new edition) 22
Designating a disarmament proposal for the total removal of certain types of weapons on both sides of a conflict or confrontation; spec. one put forward in the early 1980s for both the Soviet Union and the United States to remove all their medium-range nuclear missiles from Europe. Esp. in zero-zero option, zero-zero solution. Cf. zero optionn.
1982
The zero-zero solution remains the best arms control result.
Statement to Press in Public Papers Presidents U.S.: R. Reagan (1984) 1610/2
1996
The Soviets themselves also came around to..agreeing to the so-called zero-zero option on intermediate-range ballistic missiles.
National Interest (Nexis) Summer
2015
The Soviets rejected Reagan's zero-zero option, which made the president all the more determined to deploy the Pershing IIs.
A zero-zero disarmament proposal or option. See sense A.2.
1986
At least four important shifts were signalled by Gorbachov during the summit... His opening bid had been to offer zero-zero in Europe, combined with a freeze at existing levels in Asia.
Observer 19 October 10/3
2015
The responses diverged, beginning with Secretary of State Alexander Haig, a former NATO Supreme Commander and opponent of zero-zero.
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
zero-zero typically occurs about 0.02 times per million words in modern written English.
zero-zero 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-zero, adj. & n., 1930–2010
* 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
1930
0.012
1940
0.011
1950
0.013
1960
0.014
1970
0.016
1980
0.016
1990
0.017
2000
0.018
2010
0.02
Frequency of zero-zero, adj. & 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
0.0087
2018
0.0077
2019
0.0072
2020
0.0065
2021
0.0076
2022
0.0081
2023
0.0089
2024
0.01
Originally published as part of the entry for zero, n. & adj.
zero-zero, adj. & n. was revised in June 2018.
zero-zero, adj. & n. was last modified in July 2023.