A religious system originating in ancient Persia (now Iran), maintaining a dualistic doctrine which contrasts the force of good in the world with that of evil, and predicts the ultimate defeat of evil by good. Cf. Zarathustrianismn.
Zoroastrianism is based on the teachings of the ancient Persian prophet, Zoroaster (also called Zarathustra), said to have lived at some point between the middle of the first and second millennia b.c. The sacred scriptures of the religion (see Avestan.) contain elements attributed to Zoroaster himself (see Gathan.). It was the dominant religion of Persia from the 6th cent. b.c. until the rise of Islam and was subsequently preserved predominantly amongst the descendants of Zoroastrian Persians who fled to India after the Islamic conquest (see Parseen. A.1).
1832
At the period alluded to, and for a long time antecedent to the epoch of the Jewish captivity, we have according to Volney, the high antiquity assignable to the principles and tenets of Zoroastrianism.
R. J. Rowe, Diss. Ruins or Revol. of Empires xvii. 227
1871
The ancient Zoroastrianism of the undivided Iranian race appears as a pure monotheistic religion, opposed alike to pantheism and polytheism.
P. Smith, Ancient History of East xviii. 386
1941
He took from Zoroastrianism cosmic and eschatological principles, and from Indian teaching the ascetic ordering of life.
A. C. Bouquet, Comparative Religion xi. 216
2021
Interactions with Buddhism, Hinduism, and Zoroastrianism had in turn a deep influence on Mediterranean Islamicate cultures.
L. Saif in E. Asprem & J. Strube, New Approaches to Study of Esotericism 68
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.
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.
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
1800s–
Zoroasterianism ( British English /ˌzɒrəʊˌaˈstɪəriənɪz(ə)m/ (zorr-oh-ass-TEER-ee-uh-niz-uhm) , U.S. English /ˌzɔroʊˌæˈstɪriəˌnɪzəm/ (zor-oh-ass-TEER-ee-uh-niz-uhm) ), Zoroastrianism
Frequency
Zoroastrianism typically occurs about 0.3 times per million words in modern written English.
Zoroastrianism 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 Zoroastrianism, n., 1850–2010
* 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
1850
0.081
1860
0.1
1870
0.13
1880
0.16
1890
0.21
1900
0.24
1910
0.27
1920
0.29
1930
0.31
1940
0.32
1950
0.32
1960
0.3
1970
0.31
1980
0.32
1990
0.32
2000
0.32
2010
0.34
Zoroastrianism, n. was revised in March 2023.
Zoroastrianism, n. was last modified in July 2023.