zymology, n.

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

# zymologynoun

## Factsheet

### What does the noun zymology mean?

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

Fewer than 0.01occurrences per million words in modern written English

1840 | 0.0002
1850 | 0.0002
1860 | 0.0002
1870 | 0.0003
1880 | 0.0005
1890 | 0.0009
1900 | 0.0011
1910 | 0.0011
1920 | 0.0014
1930 | 0.0017
1940 | 0.0016
1950 | 0.0015
1960 | 0.0012
1970 | 0.0011
1980 | 0.0011
1990 | 0.0008
2000 | 0.0006
2010 | 0.0006

### How is the noun zymology pronounced?

#### British English

/zʌɪˈmɒlədʒi/
zigh-MOL-uh-jee

#### U.S. English

/zaɪˈmɑlədʒi/
zigh-MAH-luh-jee

### Where does the noun zymology come from?

Earliest known use

mid 1700s

The earliest known use of the noun zymology is in the mid 1700s.

OED's earliest evidence for zymology is from 1753, in Chambers's Cyclopædia.

### Nearby entries

1. zymogen, n. 1877–
2. zymogenetic, adj. 1896–
3. zymogenic, adj. 1884–
4. zymogluconate, n. 1887–
5. zymogluconic, adj. 1886–
6. zymogram, n. 1957–
7. zymohydrolysis, n. 1903–
8. zymoid, adj. & n. 1891–
9. zymological, adj. 1828–
10. zymologist, n. 1828–
11. zymology, n.1753–
12. zymolysis, n. 1890–
13. zymolytic, adj. 1890–
14. zymome, n. 1820–31
15. zymometer, n. 1842–
16. zymophore, adj. 1900–
17. zymophoric, adj. 1902–
18. zymophyte, n. 1890–
19. zymosan, n. 1943–
20. zymoscope, n. 1868–
21. zymosimeter, n. 1704–

## Etymology

‑logy comb. form.

## Meaning & use

1. 1753–
   The science of fermentation; that department of chemistry which deals with ferments and their action.
   Stressed as zyˈmology.
   1. 1753

      > Zymology [referring to W. Simpson's Zymologia Physica, 1675].

      Chambers's Cyclopædia Suppl.
   2. 1828–32

      > Zumology.

      N. Webster, American Dictionary of English Language
   chemistry
   1. physical chemistry 1743–
      The branch of chemistry concerned with the interrelation of the chemical and physical properties of matter and the application to chemical systems…
   2. zymology 1753–
      The science of fermentation; that department of chemistry which deals with ferments and their action.
   3. pneumatic chemistry 1788–
      A branch of chemistry concerned with the discovery of new gases and the investigation of their properties.
   4. agricultural chemistry 1795–
      The science of chemistry and biochemistry in their relation to agriculture, esp. agricultural production, the utilization of agricultural products…
   5. stoicheiometry 1807–
      The process or art of calculating or determining the equivalent and atomic weights of the elements participating in any chemical reaction; the…
   6. statical chemistry 1809–
      The part of chemistry dealing primarily with the composition of substances rather than with their reactions.
   7. electrochemistry 1811–
      The branch of chemistry concerned with the relations between chemical and electrical phenomena, and esp. with reactions occurring at the point of…
   8. chemical physics 1829–
      (Originally) the branch of chemistry concerned with the physical properties of chemical substances; physical chemistry; (in later use usually) spec.…
   9. phytochemistry 1837–
      The chemistry of plants and plant products.
   10. thermochemistry 1844–
       That branch of chemical science which deals with the quantities of heat evolved or absorbed when substances undergo chemical change or enter into…
   11. actinochemistry 1845–
       The chemistry of actinism; the part of science concerned with the chemical effects of the sun's rays. Cf. photochemistry, n.
   12. inorganic chemistry 1847–
       That branch of Chemistry which investigates inorganic compounds; the chemistry of mineral substances.
   13. phytochimy 1847
       = phytochemistry, n.
   14. biochemistry 1848–
       The branch of science concerned with the chemical substances, reactions, and physico-chemical processes which occur within living organisms…
   15. microchemistry 1853–
       Originally: chemistry applied to the study of microscopic objects, esp. cells and tissues; histochemistry; the use of the microscope in chemistry…
   16. palaeochemistry 1854–
       The chemical features of something as they were at some time in the past; the branch of science that deals with these.
   17. actinology 1855–
       Medicine. The science of the chemical or (esp.) physiological action of sunlight. Cf. actinochemistry, n.
   18. food chemistry 1860–
       The branch of food science concerned with the chemical composition and properties of foods.
   19. photochemistry 1860–
       The branch of chemistry that deals with the effects on molecules and their reactions of the absorption of energy from light (or from electromagnetic…
   20. physico-chemistry 1860–
       Physical chemistry; physics and chemistry.
   21. zymotechny 1860–
       The art of fermentation (cf. zymurgy, n.).
   22. anorganology 1876–
       That one of the two great divisions of Natural Science which relates to inorganic objects, and phenomena explicable by mechanical and chemical…
   23. water chemistry 1877–
       Chemical reactions involving or occurring in water; the chemical composition and properties of water; a branch of chemistry dealing with these.
   24. kinetics 1884–
       A field of study concerned with the mechanisms and rates of chemical reactions or other kinds of process; see also gas kinetics, n.
   25. structural chemistry 1884–
       The branch of chemistry concerned with the arrangement or order of attachment of atoms in molecules and ions, and with the bonding between…
   26. stereochemistry 1890–
       That department of chemistry which deals with theoretical differences in the relative position in space of atoms in a molecule, in relation to…
   27. spectrochemistry 1893–
       The branch of chemistry dealing with the chemical application of spectroscopy, esp. in analysis, and with the interpretation of spectra in chemical…
   28. cytochemistry 1900–
       The chemistry of cells; the study of this; esp. the study of the occurrence and distribution of biochemical substances and processes within cells…
   29. radiochemistry 1904–
       The branch of chemistry that deals with radioactive substances, sometimes also including the study of chemical changes produced by ionizing…
   30. immunochemistry 1907–
       Chemistry as applied to immunology; the chemistry of immunological phenomena; the immunochemical characteristics of an antigen, antibody…
   31. magnetochemistry 1914–
       The branch of science concerned with the interrelation of magnetism and chemical phenomena, molecular and atomic structure, etc.
   32. leptonology 1917
       (See quot. 1917.)
   33. food science 1919–
       The study of the chemical and physical properties of foods and their constituents and of changes that these may undergo during processing…
   34. surface chemistry 1919–
       The branch of chemistry concerned with the surfaces of solids, or the interfaces between phases, and the chemical phenomena that occur there…
   35. crystal chemistry 1921–
       The branch of chemistry concerned with the relationship between chemical composition and the structure and other properties of crystalline…
   36. radiation chemistry 1926–
       The study of chemical changes arising from the action of ionizing radiation; the properties of a substance in this respect; cf. radiochemistry, n.
   37. leptology 1928
       Used for leptonology, n. rare.
   38. mechanochemistry 1928–
       The branch of science that deals with the relation between mechanical and chemical phenomena and the interconversion of these forms of energy…
   39. agrochemistry 1930–
       = agricultural chemistry, n.
   40. sonochemistry 1934–
       The branch of chemistry concerned with chemical changes caused by or involving ultrasound.
   41. quantum chemistry 1938–
       The branch of physical chemistry concerned with the explanation of chemical phenomena in terms of quantum mechanics.
   42. cosmochemistry 1940–
       The study of the chemical properties of the heavenly bodies and of the formation and distribution of elements and compounds in them and in the…
   43. polymer chemistry 1945–
       The branch of chemistry concerned with the preparation and properties of polymers.
   44. conductometry 1946–
       The study or science of the measurement of conductivity; the process of such measurement.
   45. topochemistry 1948–
       The chemistry of reactions as affected by local variations in the structure of the medium on or in which they occur.
   46. proto-chemistry 1962–
       Early ideas, practices, or other features that anticipated the development of modern chemistry.
   47. stereology 1963–
       The science of the reconstruction of three-dimensional structures from two-dimensional sections of them.
   48. bioelectrochemistry 1964–
       Electrochemistry as manifested in or applied to biological molecules, systems, and processes.
   49. biochem 1968–
       = biochemistry, n. 1 Frequently attributive.
   50. femtochemistry 1988–
       The branch of chemistry concerned with the investigation of the dynamics of bond breaking and bond formation in chemical reactions on a time scale of…
   51. green chemistry 1989–
       (An approach to) applied chemistry whose aim is to reduce or eliminate the use and generation of environmentally harmful substances in industrial…
   52. combinatorial chemistry 1992–
       A branch of chemistry concerned with the synthesis of drugs, antibodies, and other compounds by combining a number of starting compounds in a…
   53. cheminformatics 1996–
       The branch of chemistry concerned with the application of the techniques and data retrieval methods made possible by computer science to chemical…
   View in Historical Thesaurus

## Pronunciation

### British English

/zʌɪˈmɒlədʒi/
zigh-MOL-uh-jee

### U.S. English

/zaɪˈmɑlədʒi/
zigh-MAH-luh-jee

####

##### 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

Also †zumology.

## Frequency

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

zymology is in frequency band 1, which contains words occurring fewer than 0.001 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 zymology, 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 | 0.0002
1850 | 0.0002
1860 | 0.0002
1870 | 0.0003
1880 | 0.0005
1890 | 0.0009
1900 | 0.0011
1910 | 0.0011
1920 | 0.0014
1930 | 0.0017
1940 | 0.0016
1950 | 0.0015
1960 | 0.0012
1970 | 0.0011
1980 | 0.0011
1990 | 0.0008
2000 | 0.0006
2010 | 0.0006

Originally published as part of the entry for zymo-, comb. form

zymo-, comb. form was first published in 1921; not fully revised.