zinc roof, n.

zinc-roof
http://www.oed.com/dictionary/zinc-roof_n%3Ftab%3Dmeaning_and_use
First published 1921; not fully revised

# zinc roofnoun

## Factsheet

### What does the noun zinc roof mean?

There is one meaning in OED's entry for the noun zinc roof. See ‘Meaning & use’ for definition, usage, and quotation evidence.

#### Entry status

OED is undergoing a continuous programme of revision to modernize and improve definitions. This entry has not yet been fully revised.

### How common is the noun zinc roof?

About 0.02occurrences per million words in modern written English

1880 | 0.021
1890 | 0.019
1900 | 0.019
1910 | 0.018
1920 | 0.016
1930 | 0.015
1940 | 0.014
1950 | 0.014
1960 | 0.015
1970 | 0.015
1980 | 0.017
1990 | 0.018
2000 | 0.018
2010 | 0.019

### Where does the noun zinc roof come from?

Earliest known use

1880s

The earliest known use of the noun zinc roof is in the 1880s.

OED's earliest evidence for zinc roof is from 1883, in the writing of Olive Schreiner, author and social theorist.

### Nearby entries

1. zincograph, n. 1888–
2. zincograph, v. 1865–
3. zincographer, n. 1839–
4. zincographic, adj. 1850–
5. zincography, n. 1834–
6. zincoid, n. 1842–
7. zinc orange, n. 1918–
8. zincous, adj. 1842–
9. zinc-plate, n. 1823–
10. zinc-powder, n. 1881–
11. zinc roof, n.1883–
12. zinc spar, n. 1796–
13. zinc-sponge, n. 1902–
14. zinc sulphide, n. 1851–
15. zinc white, n. 1847–
16. zincy, adj. 1757–
17. zinc yellow, n. 1847–
18. zindabad, int. & n. 1930–
19. zindan, n. 1844–
20. Zindikite, n. 1694–
21. Zindiq, n. 1667–

## Meaning & use

S. Afr. and W. Indies.

1. 1883–
   A corrugated roof of galvanized iron.
   1. 1883

      > The zinc roofs of the out-buildings, the stone walls of the ‘kraals’, all reflected the fierce sunlight.

      O. Schreiner, Story of African Farm vol. I. i. i. 11
   2. 1946

      > There was a mass of dry maize leaves under a zinc roof jutting out from the wall.

      U. Krige, Way Out vi. 82
   1. leads 1578–
      plural. The sheets or strips of lead used to cover a roof; often collective for a lead flat, a lead roof, †occasionally construed as singular.
   2. pantile roof 1703–
      (In sense 1.) pantile roof, pantile works, etc.
   3. scale-roof 1862–
      = scaled roof (see scaled, adj.¹ 2c).
   4. lead-flat 1875–
      (See quots.).
   5. zinc roof 1883–
      A corrugated roof of galvanized iron.
   View in Historical Thesaurus

## Frequency

zinc roof typically occurs about 0.02 times per million words in modern written English.

zinc roof 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 zinc roof, n., 1880–2010

* 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
--- | ---
1880 | 0.021
1890 | 0.019
1900 | 0.019
1910 | 0.018
1920 | 0.016
1930 | 0.015
1940 | 0.014
1950 | 0.014
1960 | 0.015
1970 | 0.015
1980 | 0.017
1990 | 0.018
2000 | 0.018
2010 | 0.019

### Frequency of zinc roof, 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 | 0.012
2018 | 0.012
2019 | 0.011
2020 | 0.011
2021 | 0.012
2022 | 0.013
2023 | 0.013
2024 | 0.015

Originally published as part of the entry for zinc, n.

zinc, n. was first published in 1921; not fully revised.