In sense 2 (with reference to a painter or artist in general) after ancient Greekζωγράϕος person who paints from life or nature, painter (see zoographn.) and its Hellenistic Greek variant ζῳογράϕος; compare earlier zoographn.
Meaning & use
1.
1646–
A person who produces descriptions of animals and their characteristics; a descriptive zoologist; (in later use) esp. a zoogeographer. Cf. zoographyn. 1.
1646
One kinde of Locust..by Zoographers called mantis.
Sir T. Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemicaiv. i. 180
1688
Zoographers observe, That the Camelion has a very uncommon structure of his visive Organs.
R. Boyle, Disquisition Final Causes ii. 61
1711
Others [sc. animals having only one horn] are mentioned by Zoographers.
British Apollo 2–5 May
1735
We learn from the Zoographers, that there are some Animals that live on the Land, some in the Water, and others, that..are equally suited either to Land or Water.
T. Dallowe, translation of H. Boerhaave, Elements of Chemistryvol. I.ii. 41
1822
Our Correspondent..is convinced, by the description which Zoographers give of the stork.
Morning Post 12 December 3
1867
An accomplished zoographer..to describe the animals.
Lowell (Massachusetts) Daily Citizen 23 October
1905
It [sc. a snake] was stated to have been collected by his brother at Manila, and to say that the case puzzled the zoographers is to put it mildly.
Science 24 March 472/2
1946
There is a growing tendency, on the part of many zoographers, to explain the distribution of all life everywhere on the assumption that migration took place.
T. Barbour, Naturalist's Scrapbook 102
2010
The simile between the bear and the poet presupposes the belief by ancient zoographers that bear fetuses were born shapeless.
J. Farrell & M. C. J. Putnam, Vergil's Aeneid viii. 110
A painter or artist who specializes in depictions of animals or living creatures. Also (chiefly with specific allusion to ancient Greek or Latin): a painter or artist in general. Cf. zoographyn. 2. Now rare.
1656
Zoographer..a Painter or one that draws the pictures of beasts.
T. Blount, Glossographia
1736
Zoographer, a Painter of living Creatures.
Neve's City & Country Purchaser's & Builder's Dictionary (ed. 3)
1814
This very clever artist and zoographer.
Sporting Magazinevol. 44 66
1814
The earlier writers on art,..who flourished before the age of Trajan and the Antonines, constantly entitle their books on zoographers, on zoography—this was their only usual denomination for painting, as if still life did not merit the name.
W. Taylor in Monthly Magazine June 406/1
1855
We are willing enough to have the Athenian people painted as the lion..but we object to his adopting the practice of the ancient zoographers, and appending the epigram, ‘This is a lion’.
Dublin University Magazine April 490/2
1983
A ‘zoographer’, that is to say one who excelled in drawing living beings.
G. Heard Hamilton, Art & Archit. Russia (ed. 3) 134/2
1998
Confirming the Platonic hierarchy of poiesis (the god, the demiurge, the zoographer—the painter).
C. Fynsk, translation of P. Lacoue-Labarthe, Typography 87
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
zoographer typically occurs fewer than 0.01 times per million words in modern written English.
zoographer 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 zoographer, n., 1810–2010
* 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.