ziggurat, n.

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

# zigguratnoun

## Earlier version

- ziggurat in OED Second Edition (1989)

## Factsheet

### What does the noun ziggurat mean?

There are two meanings listed in OED's entry for the noun ziggurat. See ‘Meaning & use’ for definitions, usage, and quotation evidence.

ziggurat has developed meanings and uses in subjects including

ancient history (1870s) church architecture (1870s) religion (1870s)

#### 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 ziggurat?

About 0.2occurrences per million words in modern written English

1870 | 0.025
1880 | 0.03
1890 | 0.036
1900 | 0.049
1910 | 0.063
1920 | 0.07
1930 | 0.09
1940 | 0.12
1950 | 0.14
1960 | 0.15
1970 | 0.16
1980 | 0.17
1990 | 0.15
2000 | 0.16
2010 | 0.16

### How is the noun ziggurat pronounced?

#### British English

/ˈzɪɡᵿrat/
ZIG-uh-rat

#### U.S. English

/ˈzɪɡəˌræt/
ZIG-uh-rat

### Where does the noun ziggurat come from?

Earliest known use

1870s

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

OED's earliest evidence for ziggurat is from 1873, in the Daily Telegraph (London).

ziggurat is a borrowing from Assyrian.

Etymons: Assyrian ziqquratu.

### Nearby entries

1. Ziegler-Natta, n. 1965–
2. Ziehl, n. 1892–
3. Ziehl-Neelsen, n. 1892–
4. ziff, n. 1917–
5. ZIFT, n. 1988–
6. zig, n. 1978–
7. zig, v. 1969–
8. Zigeuner, n. & adj. 1802–
9. Zigeunerin, n. 1845–83
10. ziggety, int., adj., & adv. 1924–
11. ziggurat, n.1873–
12. zigzag, n., adj., & adv. 1712–
13. zigzag, v. 1777–
14. zigzag connection, n. 1922–
15. zigzagged, adj. 1774–
16. zigzaggery, n. 1761–
17. zigzaggy, adj. a1845–
18. zigzag machine, n. 1952–
19. zigzag trefoil, n. 1796–
20. zig-zig, n. 1918–
21. Zika, n. 1952–

## Etymology

### Summary

A borrowing from Assyrian.
Etymon: Assyrian ziqquratu.
< Assyrian ziqquratu (also zigg-, sig(g)-, ‑ur(r)at) height, pinnacle, top of a mountain, temple-tower; compare zaqaru to be high (Muss-Arnolt).

## Meaning & use

1. 1.
   1873–
   A staged tower of pyramid form in which each successive storey is smaller than that below it, so as to leave a terrace all round; an Assyrian or Babylonian temple-tower.
   1. 1873

      > At the north end the cone represents the ancient ziggurat or tower.

      Daily Telegraph 7 July 5/6
   2. 1877

      > The ziggurrat or sacred tower of the palace of Khorsabad.

      translation of Lenormat's Chaldæan Magic xv. 227
   3. 1883

      > In all directions rise the lofty ziggurats or towers of the temples.

      P. H. Hunter, Story of Daniel ix. 156
   4. 1898

      > The ziggurat, or great tower, of which the Tower of Babel was a famous example.

      English Historical Review January 5
   5. 1908

      > The zikkurats at Erech and Borsippa.

      Expositor May 402
   ancient history church architecture religion
   1. shikhara 1829–
      A pyramidal tower on a Hindu temple, sometimes having convexly curved sides.
   2. ziggurat 1873–
      A staged tower of pyramid form in which each successive storey is smaller than that below it, so as to leave a terrace all round; an Assyrian or…
   View in Historical Thesaurus
   1. porcelain tower 1666–
      now historical (a name for) a famous tower (destroyed in 1853) at Nanjing in China, which was covered with porcelain tiles.
   2. gopura 1862–
      The great pyramidal tower over the entrance-gate to the precinct of a temple (in Southern India).
   3. ziggurat 1873–
      A staged tower of pyramid form in which each successive storey is smaller than that below it, so as to leave a terrace all round; an Assyrian or…
   4. subtower 1883–
      A secondary or subsidiary tower. Also: a tower situated beneath another tower.
   View in Historical Thesaurus
2. 2.
   1959–
   transferred and figurative.
   1. 1959

      > The burnished ziggurats of copper saucepans.

      Times 21 October 11/3
   2. 1970

      > The bags are abandoned, of course, and join the rest of the overkill of trash imagery, now heaped into ziggurats, festooning vegetation, scrawled in livid drifts on the downs.

      Daily Telegraph 30 October (Colour Supplement) 26/3
   3. 1979

      > His Dallas Chapel in the form of a spiral ziggurat..borrows quite directly from the ninth-century minaret at Samarra.

      Journal of Royal Society of Arts November 761/1
   4. 1980

      > The photograph will give an idea of the real engineering performed to make this temple a ‘ziggurat’ of comb—upward from the base above the regular [honey]combs.

      Bee Culture July 376

## Pronunciation

### British English

/ˈzɪɡᵿrat/
ZIG-uh-rat

### U.S. English

/ˈzɪɡəˌræt/
ZIG-uh-rat

####

##### 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

## Forms

### Variant forms

1. 1800s–
   ziggurat, zikkurat

## Frequency

ziggurat typically occurs about 0.2 times per million words in modern written English.

ziggurat is in frequency band 4, which contains words occurring between 0.1 and 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 ziggurat, 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 | 0.025
1880 | 0.03
1890 | 0.036
1900 | 0.049
1910 | 0.063
1920 | 0.07
1930 | 0.09
1940 | 0.12
1950 | 0.14
1960 | 0.15
1970 | 0.16
1980 | 0.17
1990 | 0.15
2000 | 0.16
2010 | 0.16

### Frequency of ziggurat, n., 2017–2024

* Occurrences per million words in written English

Modern frequency series are derived from a corpus of 20 billion words, covering the period from 2017 to the present. The corpus is mainly compiled from online news sources, and covers all major varieties of World English.

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 corpus.

Period | Frequency per million words
--- | ---
2017 | 0.02
2018 | 0.02
2019 | 0.022
2020 | 0.023
2021 | 0.024
2022 | 0.022
2023 | 0.023
2024 | 0.021

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

ziggurat, n. was last modified in December 2023.