ziczac, n.

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

# ziczacnoun

## Earlier version

- ziczac in OED Second Edition (1989)

## Factsheet

### What does the noun ziczac mean?

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

Fewer than 0.01occurrences per million words in modern written English

1840 | 0.016
1850 | 0.014
1860 | 0.013
1870 | 0.012
1880 | 0.011
1890 | 0.0081
1900 | 0.0066
1910 | 0.0063
1920 | 0.0063
1930 | 0.0059
1940 | 0.006
1950 | 0.0057
1960 | 0.005
1970 | 0.0043
1980 | 0.0036
1990 | 0.003
2000 | 0.0029
2010 | 0.0024

### How is the noun ziczac pronounced?

#### British English

/ˈzɪkzak/

### Where does the noun ziczac come from?

Earliest known use

1840s

The earliest known use of the noun ziczac is in the 1840s.

OED's earliest evidence for ziczac is from 1844, in the writing of William Cooley, geographer and controversialist.

ziczac is a borrowing from Arabic.

Etymons: Arabic zaqzāq.

### Nearby entries

1. zhuyin zimu, n. 1938–
2. zhuzh, n. 1968–
3. zhuzh, v. 1970–
4. zhuzhy, adj. 1968–
5. ziamet, n. 1807–
6. ziarat, n. 1776–
7. zibeline, n. 1585–
8. zibet, n. 1594–
9. zibet-muff, n. 1685
10. zibib, n. 1836–
11. ziczac, n.1844–
12. zidovudine, n. 1987–
13. Ziegfeld, n. 1913–
14. Ziegler, n. 1957–
15. Ziegler-Natta, n. 1965–
16. Ziehl, n. 1892–
17. Ziehl-Neelsen, n. 1892–
18. ziff, n. 1917–
19. ZIFT, n. 1988–
20. zig, n. 1978–
21. zig, v. 1969–

## Etymology

### Summary

A borrowing from Arabic.
Etymon: Arabic zaqzāq.
Ultimately < Arabic zaqzāq, saqsaq(Dozy).

## Meaning & use

1. 1844–
   An Egyptian species of plover, Pluvianus ægyptius (Charadrius melanocephalus), which by its cry warns the crocodile of approaching danger; perhaps identical with the trochilus (see trochilus n.1 1).
   1. 1844

      > The bird called sagsag, or siksak, by the Arabs, is a species of plover.

      W. D. Cooley, Larcher's Notes Herod. vol. I. ii. lxviii. 285
   2. 1849

      > I was on the point of firing at his [sc. a sleeping crocodile's] eye, when I observed that he was attended by a bird called a ziczac.

      R. Curzon, Visits to Monasteries in Levant xii. 150
   3. 1882

      > Almost too lazy to keep his jaws open while the little ‘sicsac’ plover picked his teeth.

      P. Robinson, Noah's Ark iii
   birds
   1. ziczac 1844–
      An Egyptian species of plover, Pluvianus ægyptius (Charadrius melanocephalus), which by its cry warns the crocodile of approaching danger; perhaps…
   2. crocodile-bird 1868–
      The Egyptian black-headed plover, Pluvianus ægyptius, so called from its habit of eating the insect parasites of the crocodile, probably the…
   View in Historical Thesaurus

## Pronunciation

### British English

/ˈzɪkzak/

####

##### 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.

## Forms

### Variant forms

Also siksak, sagsag, sicsac, zi(c)kza(c)k.

## Frequency

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

ziczac 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 ziczac, n., 1840–2010

* 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
--- | ---
1840 | 0.016
1850 | 0.014
1860 | 0.013
1870 | 0.012
1880 | 0.011
1890 | 0.0081
1900 | 0.0066
1910 | 0.0063
1920 | 0.0063
1930 | 0.0059
1940 | 0.006
1950 | 0.0057
1960 | 0.005
1970 | 0.0043
1980 | 0.0036
1990 | 0.003
2000 | 0.0029
2010 | 0.0024

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

ziczac, n. was last modified in December 2024.