zone plate, n.

zone-plate
http://www.oed.com/dictionary/zone-plate_n%3Ftab%3Dmeaning_and_use
First published 1921; not fully revised

# zone platenoun

## Factsheet

### What does the noun zone plate mean?

There is one meaning in OED's entry for the noun zone plate. 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 zone plate?

About 0.07occurrences per million words in modern written English

1890 | 0.0081
1900 | 0.0093
1910 | 0.011
1920 | 0.012
1930 | 0.018
1940 | 0.03
1950 | 0.043
1960 | 0.051
1970 | 0.06
1980 | 0.067
1990 | 0.075
2000 | 0.082
2010 | 0.08

### Where does the noun zone plate come from?

Earliest known use

1890s

The earliest known use of the noun zone plate is in the 1890s.

OED's earliest evidence for zone plate is from 1890, in the writing of T. Preston.

### Nearby entries

1. zone defence | zone defense, n. 1927–
2. zone electrophoresis, n. 1952–
3. zone fossil, n. 1904–
4. zoneless, adj. 1748–
5. zonelet, n. 1855–
6. zone level, v. 1974–
7. zone leveller, n. 1956–
8. zone levelling, n. 1953–
9. zone-melt, v. 1982–
10. zone melting, n. 1952–
11. zone plate, n.1890–
12. zoner, n. 1962–
13. zone-refine, v. 1962–
14. zone refiner, n. 1959–
15. zone refining, n. 1952–
16. zone therapy, n. 1915–
17. zone time, n. 1908–
18. Zonian, n. 1910–
19. zonic, adj. 1797–
20. zoning, n. a1821–
21. zonite, n. 1860–

## Meaning & use

1. 1890–
   A plate of glass marked out into concentric zones or rings alternately transparent and opaque, used like a lens to bring light to a focus.
   1. 1890

      > A zone plate has therefore the power of a condensing lens.

      T. Preston, Theory of Light ix. 178
   2. 1937

      > The intensity of the image produced with a zone plate will be greater if alternate zones are not blocked out but are left transmitting, with a phase difference of one half period introduced between them and adjacent zones.

      G. S. Monk, Light xii. 167
   3. 1978

      > When the zone plate is illuminated with an X-ray plane wave, a converging spherical wave will come out.

      Scientific American November 65/1
   optics
   1. zone plate 1890–
      A plate of glass marked out into concentric zones or rings alternately transparent and opaque, used like a lens to bring light to a focus.
   View in Historical Thesaurus

## Frequency

zone plate typically occurs about 0.07 times per million words in modern written English.

zone plate 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 zone plate, n., 1890–2010

* 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
--- | ---
1890 | 0.0081
1900 | 0.0093
1910 | 0.011
1920 | 0.012
1930 | 0.018
1940 | 0.03
1950 | 0.043
1960 | 0.051
1970 | 0.06
1980 | 0.067
1990 | 0.075
2000 | 0.082
2010 | 0.08

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

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