a. adj. Designating a derivative in which the form of the original word is not altered; that marks such a derivative;b. n. a derivative in which the form of the original word is not altered.
We cannot say that song /soŋ/ is an alternant of sing /siŋ/ with the addition of a zero derivative suffix.
Languagevol. 24 427
1960
There are quite a few vbs with French roots for which no French verbs are recorded and which may accordingly be treated as zero derivatives: feeble vb.., master vb, [etc.].
H. Marchand, Categories Present-day English Word-formation v. 297
1976
I believe..that act (noun) must be regarded as zero-derivative (actØ) from the corresponding verb.
Archivum Linguisticumvol. 7 133
1999
As far as the arrangement of derivatives, including zero-derivatives, is concerned, the principle..is to include all derivatives of a particular simple word in the entry for that word.
A. P. Cowie, English Dictionary Foreign Learners i. 34
zero derivative typically occurs fewer than 0.01 times per million words in modern written English.
zero derivative is in frequency band 2, which contains words occurring between 0.001 and 0.01 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 derivative, adj. & n., 1940–2010
* 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
1940
0.0037
1950
0.0039
1960
0.004
1970
0.0041
1980
0.0044
1990
0.0045
2000
0.0045
2010
0.0045
Originally published as part of the entry for zero, n. & adj.