zero
Language: English
Part of speech: num
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈzɪəɹəʊ/
enpr: zĭʹrō
enpr: zēʹrō
ipa: /ˈzɪɹoʊ/
ipa: /ˈziɹoʊ/
ipa: /ˈzɪə.ɹəʉ/
ipa: /ˈzɪə.ɹaʉ/
rhymes: -ɪəɹəʊ
rhymes: -ɪɹəʊ
rhymes: -iːɹəʊ
Etymology: Collectively borrowed from Early Modern Spanish zero, Middle French zero, and (their etymon) Old Italian zero, from Medieval Latin zēphirum, from Arabic صِفْر (ṣifr, “nothing; cipher”), itself calqued from Sanskrit शून्य (śūnyá, “void; nothingness”). Doublet of cipher and chiffre. Cognate with Spanish cero and French zéro.
Senses: examples: text: The conductor waited until the passenger count was zero.
text: A cheque for zero dollars and zero cents crashed the computers on division by zero.
text: Last year, it scored 26 on Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index which ranks countries on a scale of zero to 100, with zero meaning “highly corrupt” and 100 signifying that a country is “very clean.”
ref: 2024 July 22, Nimi Princewill, “Uganda’s President Museveni warns citizens they are ‘playing with fire’ over planned protests”, in CNN:
text: "A zero itself is nothing, but without a zero you cannot count anything. Therefore, a zero is something, yet zero."
 These words of wisdom from the Dalai Lama might not have been in the minds of planners and engineers when designing new railway station platforms, but for several main line stations, zero is indeed something. Eight stations in the UK now operate a Platform 0 - from Cardiff to Kings Cross, Doncaster and Haymarket.
ref: 2025 May 14, Andy Comfort, “Holding out for a zero...”, in RAIL, number 1035, page 58:
glosses: The cardinal number occurring before one and that denotes no quantity or amount at all, represented in Arabic numerals as 0.
Synonyms: word: 0
word: cipher
word: goose egg
topics: tennis
sports
hobbies
lifestyle
word: love
word: naught
word: nil
word: no
word: nought
word: null
word: zilch
word: zippo
Derived terms: alef zero
big fat zero
care factor zero
element zero
exceptional zero
give zero fucks
grade zero
ground-zero
identically zero
inbox zero
kilometer zero
kilometre zero
Landau-Siegel zero
myelin protein zero
non-zero
ones and zeroes
patient zero
semi-zero grazing
Siegel zero
status zero
year zero
zero article
zero balancing
zero-based
zero blitz
zero bomb
zero car
zero chill
zero-click
zero client
zero conditional
zero-cool
zero copula
zero-coupon note
zero COVID
zero dark thirty
zero day
zero-derivation
zero derivation
zero-derive
zero derive
zero divisor
zero-dose
zero-edge pool
zero-emission
zero ending
zero-entry
zero fighter
zero fucks given
zero-G
zero-g
zero G
zero g
zero-gee
zero gee
zero grade
zero-grazed
zero-hour contract
zero-hours
zero-hours contract
zero-length
zero-life
zero line
zero lower bound
zero-marking
zero matrix
zero meridian
zero mile marker
zero mode
zero morph
zero morpheme
zero morphism
zero object
zero-one law
zero option
zero-order design
zero-order hold
zero-order logic
zero period
zero-point
zero population growth
zero prefix
zero-proof
zero-rate
zero ring
zero-shot
zero-shot learning
zero station
zero suffix
zero tensor
zeroth
zeroeth
zero-turn
zero-width
zero-width space
zero-zero
Related terms: Table of cardinal numbers 0 to 9 in various languages