Ziph, n.

ziph
http://www.oed.com/dictionary/ziph_n%3Ftab%3Dmeaning_and_use
Revised 2021

# Ziphnoun

## Earlier version

- Ziph in OED Second Edition (1989)

## Factsheet

### What does the noun Ziph mean?

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

### How common is the noun Ziph?

About 0.01occurrences per million words in modern written English

1830 | 0.071
1840 | 0.074
1850 | 0.071
1860 | 0.068
1870 | 0.066
1880 | 0.059
1890 | 0.047
1900 | 0.036
1910 | 0.025
1920 | 0.019
1930 | 0.014
1940 | 0.013
1950 | 0.012
1960 | 0.012
1970 | 0.012
1980 | 0.012
1990 | 0.012
2000 | 0.012
2010 | 0.012

### How is the noun Ziph pronounced?

#### British English

/zɪf/
ziff

#### U.S. English

/zɪf/
ziff

### Where does the noun Ziph come from?

Earliest known use

1830s

The earliest known use of the noun Ziph is in the 1830s.

OED's earliest evidence for Ziph is from 1834, in the writing of Thomas De Quincey, essayist.

Ziph is perhaps formed within English, by clipping or shortening.

Etymons: cipher n.

### Nearby entries

1. zip-code, v. 1962–
2. zip-coded, adj. 1963–
3. zip-coding, n. 1964–
4. zip coon, n. 1833–
5. zip cuff, n. 1995–
6. zip cuff, v. 1996–
7. Zipf, n. 1936–
8. zip fastener, n. 1925–
9. zip fastening, n. & adj. 1925–
10. zip gun, n. 1914–
11. Ziph, n.1834–
12. ziphian, n. & adj. 1896
13. ziphiiform, adj. 1891
14. ziphioid, adj. & n. 1861–
15. zipless, adj. 1922–
16. zip line, n. 1970–
17. zip line, v. 1998–
18. zipliner, n. 1993–
19. zip lining, n.?1983–
20. zip-lipped, adj. 1943–
21. ziplock, n. 1928–

## Etymology

### Summary

Of uncertain origin. Perhaps formed within English, by clipping or shortening.
Etymon: cipher n.
Origin uncertain. Perhaps shortened < cipher n.

## Meaning & use

Now rare.

1. 1834–
   A cryptic way of speaking formerly used among some pupils at Winchester college, characterized by substituting or adding consonants to English words.
   1. 1834

      > Lord W. and I communicated our thoughts occasionally by means of a language..called by the name of Ziph. The language and the name were both derived..from Winchester.

      T. De Quincey, Sketches Life & Manners in Tait's Edinburgh Magazine March 92/1
   2. 1922

      > ‘Ziph’ or ‘Hypernese’ (at Winchester) substitutes wa for the first of two initial consonants and inserts p or g, making ‘breeches’ into wareechepes.

      O. Jespersen, Language viii. 150
   3. 1942

      > Gibberish is applied mostly to Ziph (shagall wege gogo = shall we go).

      E. Partridge, Usage & Abusage 160/2
   education school slang
   1. artificial language 1705–
      An invented language, esp. one designed for international use.
   2. natural language 1774–
      A language that has evolved naturally, as distinguished from an artificial language devised for international communications, formal logical or…
   3. Ziph 1834–
      A cryptic way of speaking formerly used among some pupils at Winchester college, characterized by substituting or adding consonants to English words.
   4. Volapük 1885–
      An artificial language, chiefly composed of materials from European tongues, invented in 1879 by a German priest, Johann M. Schleyer, as a means…
   5. Esperanto 1892–
      An artificial language invented for universal use by Dr. Ludovik Lazarus Zamenhof, a Polish physician. Its vocabulary consists of roots common to…
   6. pig Latin 1896–
      An invented or modified version of a language; spec. a systematically altered form of English used as a sort of code, esp. by children. In extended…
   7. pseudo-language 1898–
   8. Idiom Neutral 1903–
      An international language based on Volapük (see Volapük, n.), devised chiefly by W. Rosenberger, and first published in English in 1903.
   9. auxiliary language 1905–
      Subsidiary to the ordinary, additional. auxiliary language, a language, esp. one invented for the purpose (e.g. Esperanto), used as a means of…
   10. Panroman 1907–
       = universal, n. B.6.
   11. universal 1907–
       An artificial language intended for international use, devised by Heinrich Molenaar in 1903, originally under the name Panroman (Panroman, n.)…
   12. Ido 1908–
       An artificial language, based on Esperanto, n., selected by the ‘Delegation for the Adoption of an Auxiliary International Language’ (founded at…
   13. Mummerset 1915–
       A pseudo-rustic dialect used by actors, modelled on dialects from the west of England.
   14. Interlingua 1922–
       An artificially devised international language; spec. one promoted by the International Auxiliary Language Association of New York.
   15. Reformed Neutral 1922–
       = Reform-Neutral, n.
   16. occidental 1926–
       An artificial language, based chiefly on the Romance languages, invented by E. J. de Wahl (1867–1948), in 1922. Cf. Reform-Neutral, n. Now historical.
   17. interlanguage 1927–
       An artificial auxiliary language. Also attributive.
   18. world auxiliary 1927–
       An existing or invented language which may be used as a standard means of communication between speakers from different language communities…
   19. Novial 1928–
       An artificial language created by Otto Jespersen in 1928 for use as an international auxiliary language.
   20. isotype 1936–
       Also Isotype. The name of an international picture language devised by O. Neurath (1882–1945), used esp. to display statistical information in a…
   21. Interglossa 1943–
       An artificial auxiliary language devised by Lancelot Hogben (1895–1975).
   22. elvish 1944–
       A language said to be used by elves.
   23. anti-language 1962–
       A (real or hypothetical) form of language which rejects, denies, or inverts the basic conventions of language. Cf. anti-art, n. A.2. Now rare.
   24. Klingon 1985–
       The language of the Klingons.
   25. leetspeak 1996–
       An informal language or code used on the internet, characterized by its distinctive vocabulary and by a nonstandard system of spelling in which…
   26. leet 2001–
       An informal language or code used on the internet, characterized by its distinctive vocabulary and by a nonstandard system of spelling in which…
   View in Historical Thesaurus

## Pronunciation

### British English

/zɪf/
ziff

### U.S. English

/zɪf/
ziff

####

##### 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

## Frequency

Ziph typically occurs about 0.01 times per million words in modern written English.

Ziph 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 Ziph, n., 1830–2010

* 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
--- | ---
1830 | 0.071
1840 | 0.074
1850 | 0.071
1860 | 0.068
1870 | 0.066
1880 | 0.059
1890 | 0.047
1900 | 0.036
1910 | 0.025
1920 | 0.019
1930 | 0.014
1940 | 0.013
1950 | 0.012
1960 | 0.012
1970 | 0.012
1980 | 0.012
1990 | 0.012
2000 | 0.012
2010 | 0.012

Ziph, n. was revised in March 2021.

Ziph, n. was last modified in December 2023.