zygomorphic, adj.

zygomorphic
http://www.oed.com/dictionary/zygomorphic_adj%3Ftab%3Dmeaning_and_use
First published 1921; not fully revised

# zygomorphicadjective

## Earlier version

- zygomorphic, a. in OED Second Edition (1989)

## Factsheet

### What does the adjective zygomorphic mean?

There is one meaning in OED's entry for the adjective zygomorphic. 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 adjective zygomorphic?

About 0.03occurrences per million words in modern written English

1870 | 0.035
1880 | 0.039
1890 | 0.04
1900 | 0.041
1910 | 0.048
1920 | 0.053
1930 | 0.049
1940 | 0.045
1950 | 0.041
1960 | 0.037
1970 | 0.033
1980 | 0.03
1990 | 0.026
2000 | 0.023
2010 | 0.022

### How is the adjective zygomorphic pronounced?

#### British English

/zʌɪɡə(ʊ)ˈmɔːfɪk/
zigh-goh-MOR-fick
/zɪɡə(ʊ)ˈmɔːfɪk/
zig-oh-MOR-fick

#### U.S. English

/ˌzaɪɡəˈmɔrfɪk/
zigh-guh-MOR-fick

### Where does the adjective zygomorphic come from?

Earliest known use

1870s

The earliest known use of the adjective zygomorphic is in the 1870s.

OED's only evidence for zygomorphic is from 1875, in a translation by Alfred Bennett, botanist and publisher, and William Thiselton-Dyer, botanist.

zygomorphic is a borrowing from Greek, combined with an English element.

Etymons: Greek ζυγόν, ‑morphic comb. form.

### Nearby entries

1. zygodactylic, adj. 1835–
2. zygodactylous, adj. 1828–
3. zygodont, adj. 1888–
4. zygogenesis, n. 1950–
5. zygology, n. 1970–
6. zygoma, n. 1684–
7. zygomatic, adj. & n. 1712–
8. zygomatico-, comb. form
9. zygomato-, comb. form
10. zygomere, n. 1966–
11. zygomorphic, adj.1875–
12. zygomorphism, n. 1875–
13. zygomorphous, adj. 1879–
14. Zygomycetes, n. 1887–
15. zygomycetous, adj. 1928–
16. zygon, n. 1886–
17. zygonema, n. 1911–
18. zygoneurous, adj. 1901–
19. zygophiuran, adj. & n. 1892–
20. zygophore, n. 1904–
21. zygophyllaceous, adj. 1887–

## Etymology

### Summary

A borrowing from Greek, combined with an English element.
Etymons: Greek ζυγόν, ‑morphic comb. form.
< Greek ζυγόν yoke + ‑morphic comb. form.

## Meaning & use

Botany.

1. 1875–
   Applied to a flower that is symmetrical about a single plane, i.e. divisible into similar lateral halves in only one way; = monosymmetrical adj.
   1. 1875

      > In Orchids both whorls are developed in a petaloid, and like the whole flower in a zygomorphic or monosymmetrical manner.

      A. W. Bennett & W. T. T. Dyer, translation of J. von Sachs, Text-book of Botany 526
   plants
   1. regular 1760–
      Botany. Of a flower, corolla, calyx, etc.: having its parts uniform in form and size; radially symmetric.
   2. decandrous 1808–
      Characterized by ten stamens.
   3. irregular 1826–
      Botany and Zoology. Not having a definite, symmetrical, or uniform shape or arrangement; spec. of a flower, Having the members of the same cycle…
   4. tetramerous 1835–
      Having, consisting of, or characterized by four parts: spec.. Botany. Having the parts of the flower-whorl in series of four. (Often written 4-merous…
   5. hendecagynous 1845–89
      Having eleven pistils.
   6. pentamerous 1848–
      Botany. Having five parts, or parts in groups or multiples of five. (Often written 5-merous.)
   7. symmetrical 1849–
      Botany. Of a flower: Having the same number of parts in each whorl: = isomerous, adj. 1.
   8. hexamerous 1857–
      Botany. Having the parts of the flower-whorl six in number. (Often written 6-merous.)
   9. isomerous 1857–
      Botany. Of a flower: Having the same number of parts in each whorl. (Said also of the whorls.) Opposed to heteromerous, adj. 2b.
   10. octamerous 1857–
       Having parts arranged in groups of eight; having eight parts of a particular type.
   11. anisomerous 1861–
       Not having equal, or the same number of, parts, unsymmetrical; esp. in Bot. having unequal numbers of parts in different whorls.
   12. octomeral 1871–
       Having parts arranged in groups of eight; = octamerous, adj.
   13. hemicyclic 1875–
       Applied to flowers which have the parts arranged spirally in such a manner that the transition from one series to another (e.g. from petals to…
   14. zygomorphic 1875–
       Applied to a flower that is symmetrical about a single plane, i.e. divisible into similar lateral halves in only one way; = monosymmetrical, adj.
   15. haplostemonous 1878–
       (Of a plant or a flower) having a single whorl or row of stamens; cf. diplostemonous, adj.
   16. zygomorphous 1879–
       Opposed to actinomorphous, adj.
   17. tetracyclic 1880–
       Having four cycles or circles; spec. in Botany, having four whorls of floral organs.
   18. heteromerous 1882–
       Botany. Applied to flowers in which the members differ in number in the different whorls: opposed to isomerous.
   19. five-merous 1888–
       = pentamerous, adj.
   20. heterocyclic 1895–
       Botany. = heteromerous, adj. 2b.
   21. oligomerous 1897–
       Botany. Having fewer divisions or parts than normal.
   22. pleiomerous 1898–
       Of a floral whorl or flower: having more than the normal number of parts.
   23. decasepalous
       Having ten sepals.
   View in Historical Thesaurus

## Pronunciation

### British English

/zʌɪɡə(ʊ)ˈmɔːfɪk/
zigh-goh-MOR-fick
/zɪɡə(ʊ)ˈmɔːfɪk/
zig-oh-MOR-fick

### U.S. English

/ˌzaɪɡəˈmɔrfɪk/
zigh-guh-MOR-fick

####

##### Consonants

- ppea
- ttea
- kkey
- bbuy
- ddye
- ɡguy
- tʃchore
- dʒjay
- ffore
- θthaw
- ssore
- ʃshore
- vvee
- ðthee
- zzee
- ʒbeige
- xloch
- hhay
- llay
- ɬrhingyll
- rray
- wway
- jyore
- mmay
- nnay
- ŋsing

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.

View the pronunciation model here.

####

##### Consonants

- ppea
- ttea
- kkey
- bbuy
- ddye*
- ɡguy
- tʃchore
- dʒjay
- ffore
- θthaw
- ssore
- ʃshore
- vvee
- ðthee
- zzee
- ʒbeige
- xloch
- hhay
- llay
- rray
- wway
- jyore
- mmay
- nnay
- ŋsing

* /d/ also represents a 'tapped' /t/ as in

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.

View the pronunciation model here.

####

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

zygomorphic typically occurs about 0.03 times per million words in modern written English.

zygomorphic 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 zygomorphic, adj., 1870–2010

* 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
--- | ---
1870 | 0.035
1880 | 0.039
1890 | 0.04
1900 | 0.041
1910 | 0.048
1920 | 0.053
1930 | 0.049
1940 | 0.045
1950 | 0.041
1960 | 0.037
1970 | 0.033
1980 | 0.03
1990 | 0.026
2000 | 0.023
2010 | 0.022

zygomorphic, adj. was first published in 1921; not fully revised.

zygomorphic, adj. was last modified in July 2023.