zooman, n.

zooman
http://www.oed.com/dictionary/zooman_n%3Ftab%3Dmeaning_and_use
Revised 2017

# zoomannoun

## Factsheet

### What does the noun zooman mean?

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

### How common is the noun zooman?

Fewer than 0.01occurrences per million words in modern written English

1870 | 0.0005
1880 | 0.0004
1890 | 0.0006
1900 | 0.0006
1910 | 0.0008
1920 | 0.0014
1930 | 0.0019
1940 | 0.0024
1950 | 0.0027
1960 | 0.0029
1970 | 0.003
1980 | 0.003
1990 | 0.0028
2000 | 0.0025
2010 | 0.0022

### Where does the noun zooman come from?

Earliest known use

1870s

The earliest known use of the noun zooman is in the 1870s.

OED's earliest evidence for zooman is from 1871, in Fun.

### Nearby entries

1. zoologist, n. 1663–
2. zoologize, v. 1830–
3. zoologizing, n. 1815–
4. zoology, n. 1663–
5. zoom, n. 1917–
6. zoom, v.¹ 1886–
7. Zoom, v.² 2014–
8. zoom, int. 1856–
9. zoomable, adj. 1972–
10. zoomagnetism, n. 1824–
11. zooman, n.1871–
12. zoomancy, n. 1888–
13. zoomania, n. 1807–
14. zoomantist, n. 1861
15. Zoomar, n. 1946–
16. zoomechanical, adj. 1897
17. zoomechanics, n. 1888–1903
18. zoomelanin, n. 1858–
19. zoometric, adj. 1892–
20. zoometry, n. 1878–
21. zooming, n. 1892–

## Meaning & use

1. 1871–
   A person (esp. a man) who works in, manages, or is associated with a zoo; a male zookeeper; an animal handler.
   1. 1871

      > Inhuman Zoomen... The members of the Zoological Society.

      Fun 7 January 13/2
   2. 1973

      > The increasing value of the Yearbook to zoomen and biologists.

      Times Literary Supplement 9 March 262/4
   3. 2006

      > The late English zooman Gerald Durrell.

      Sydney Morning Herald 9 August 22
   1. menagerist 1850–
      A keeper of a menagerie.
   2. zooman 1871–
      A person (esp. a man) who works in, manages, or is associated with a zoo; a male zookeeper; an animal handler.
   3. zookeeper 1886–
      A person responsible for taking care of the animals in a zoo; (sometimes also) the owner, director, or person in overall charge of a zoo.
   4. zoowoman 1930–
      A woman who works in, manages, or is associated with a zoo; a female zookeeper or animal handler.
   View in Historical Thesaurus

## Frequency

zooman typically occurs fewer than 0.01 times per million words in modern written English.

zooman 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 zooman, n., 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 | 0.0005
1880 | 0.0004
1890 | 0.0006
1900 | 0.0006
1910 | 0.0008
1920 | 0.0014
1930 | 0.0019
1940 | 0.0024
1950 | 0.0027
1960 | 0.0029
1970 | 0.003
1980 | 0.003
1990 | 0.0028
2000 | 0.0025
2010 | 0.0022

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

zoo, n. was revised in June 2017.