Aeronautics. A steep climb by an aircraft flying at high speed. Frequently attributive.
1917
Did you see old Cole's zoom on a quirk this morning?
Daily Mail 19 July 4/5
1918
The Hun's third repetition of the manœuvre was varied by a straight zoom instead of a climbing turn.
Blackwood's Magazine June 762/1
1932
With the speed of modern fighters when on the dive, it might happen that the fighter pilots would experience ‘blacking out’ at the critical moment of the turn and zoom.
Flight 1 April 272/1
1960
At the zoom altitudes which the Mirage is capable of reaching, there is insufficient airflow through the engine to maintain afterburner combustion.
Aeroplane 2 December 741/1
1988
The zoom climb produced a 1,200-fpm climb on the VSI initially—slowing to 900 fpm—not bad for just 47 horses (at sea level).
Canadian Aviation May 27/1
2008
During the NF104 flight test program, Smitty reached a maximum altitude of 120,800 feet on one zoom.
They state bluntly that their own duty is to their readers who demand pep and punch and zip and zoom, and art can go hang.
Harper's Magazine March 468/1
1964
Perhaps also a man has to have a bit of an inferiority complex..to give him that extra zoom as a lover. A smug, inbred type like Roger doesn't care if he's a dead loss to a woman between the sheets.
in C. Hamblett & J. Deverson, Generation X 97
a1974
I am definitely losing political zest, looking and feeling more detached, with less zoom, watching, not believing in things, not as enthusiastic or inspired.
R. Crossman, Diaries (1977) vol. III. 297
1990
Mitsubishi has given its small car, the imported Lancer, some extra zoom by adding two top-line models to the range.
Sunday Mail (Brisbane) 23 September 59/9
2010
Calgary's fourth line put in another buzzing effort. No goal. But plenty of zoom.
A camera shot that changes smoothly from a long shot to a close-up, or vice versa, without loss of focus; the act or process of smoothly changing the magnification of a shot in this way. Frequently attributive. Cf. zoomv.1 3a.
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
Frequency
zoom typically occurs about 0.8 times per million words in modern written English.
zoom 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 zoom, n., 1910–2010
* 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
1910
0.027
1920
0.037
1930
0.043
1940
0.08
1950
0.18
1960
0.29
1970
0.45
1980
0.66
1990
0.84
2000
0.93
2010
1.0
Frequency of zoom, 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.