zero
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈzɪəɹəʊ/
enpr: zĭʹrō
enpr: zēʹrō
ipa: /ˈzɪɹoʊ/
ipa: /ˈziɹoʊ/
ipa: /ˈzɪə.ɹəʉ/
ipa: /ˈzɪə.ɹaʉ/
rhymes: -ɪəɹəʊ
rhymes: -ɪɹəʊ
rhymes: -iːɹəʊ
Forms: form: zeros
form: zeroes
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: In unary and k-adic notation in general, zero is the empty string.
text: Write 0.0 to indicate a floating point number rather than the integer zero.
text: The zero sign in American Sign Language is considered rude in some cultures.
glosses: The numeric symbol that represents the cardinal number zero.
examples: text: One million has six zeroes.
text: His idea is to stand billions of ultrafine wire loops around the edge of a silicon chip — hence the name racetrack — and use electric current to slide infinitesimally small magnets up and down along each of the wires to be read and written as digital ones and zeros.
ref: 2007 September 11, John Markoff, “Redefining the Architecture of Memory”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 09 Nov 2020:
text: Here is the formal definition: an autobiographical number is a number N such that the first digit of N counts how many zeroes are in N, the second digit counts how many ones are in N and so on. In our example, 1210 has 1 zero, 2 ones, 1 two and 0 threes.
ref: 2008 March 2, Tanya Khovanova, “Autobiographical Numbers”, in arXiv, page 1:
text: This effectively allows switching on and off of the flow of current, so it is either conducting or not conducting, creating the binary system of zeroes and ones used in digital computers.
ref: 2024 January 4, Matthew Sparkes, “First working graphene semiconductor could lead to faster computers”, in New Scientist, retrieved 18 Jan 2024:
glosses: The digit 0 in the decimal, binary, and all other base numbering systems.
examples: text: The shipment was lost, so they had zero in stock.
text: He knows zero about humour.
text: In the end, all of our hard work amounted to zero.
glosses: Nothing, or none.
examples: text: The electromagnetic field does not drop all of the way to zero before a reversal.
text: Investors face a quandary. Cash offers a return of virtually zero in many developed countries; government-bond yields may have risen in recent weeks but they are still unattractive. Equities have suffered two big bear markets since 2000 and are wobbling again. It is hardly surprising that pension funds, insurers and endowments are searching for new sources of return.
ref: 2013 July 6, “The rise of smart beta”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8843, archived from the original on 01 Apr 2019, page 68:
glosses: The value of a magnitude corresponding to the cardinal number zero.
examples: text: The temperature outside is ten degrees below zero.
glosses: The point on a scale at which numbering or measurement originates.
examples: text: The zeroes of a polynomial are its roots by the fundamental theorem of algebra.
text: The derivative of a continuous, differentiable function that twice crosses the axis must have a zero.
text: The nontrivial zeros of the Riemann zeta function may all lie on the critical line.
text: As the next example shows, the set of zeros may well have a limit point not belonging to the domain.
ref: 2006, Ivan Francis Wilde, Lecture Notes on Complex Analysis, Imperial College Press, page 153:
topics: mathematics
sciences
glosses: A value of the independent variables of a function, for which the function is equal to zero.
examples: text: Since a commutative zero is the inverse of any additive identity, it must be unique when it exists.
text: The zero (of a ring or field) has the property that the product of the zero with any element yields the zero.
text: The quotient ring over a maximal ideal is a field with a single zero element.
topics: algebra
mathematics
sciences
glosses: The additive identity element of a monoid or greater algebraic structure, particularly a group or ring.
examples: text: They rudely treated him like a zero.
glosses: A person of little or no importance.
examples: text: The visit to Townsville was filled with nostalgia for me. I remembered very well staying there on June 8, 1942. I shared a room with a brave and friendly officer, Colonel Francis Stevens. Early the next morning we flew to Port Moresby in New Guinea, and from there we took off in separate planes. Colonel Stevens never returned from that flight; his plane was shot down by a Japanese Zero.
ref: 1971, Lyndon Johnson, “The New Age of Regionalism”, in The Vantage Point, Holt, Reinhart & Winston, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 361:
topics: government
military
politics
war
glosses: A Mitsubishi A6M Zero, a long range fighter aircraft operated by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service from 1940 to 1945.
glosses: A setting of calibrated instruments such as a firearm, corresponding to a zero value.
examples: text: The takeovers were financed by issuing zeroes.
topics: business
finance
glosses: A security which has a zero coupon (paying no periodic interest).
Synonyms: sense: numeric symbol zero
word: cipher
sense: digit zero
word: slashed zero
sense: point of origin on a scale
word: origin
sense: point of origin on a scale
word: zero point
sense: lowest point
word: nadir
sense: negligible or irrelevant amount
word: naught
sense: negligible or irrelevant amount
word: nil
sense: negligible or irrelevant amount
word: nothing
sense: negligible or irrelevant amount
word: nought
sense: negligible or irrelevant amount
word: nowt
sense: negligible or irrelevant amount
word: null
sense: negligible or irrelevant amount
word: bugger all
sense: negligible or irrelevant amount
word: fuck all
sense: negligible or irrelevant amount
word: nada
sense: negligible or irrelevant amount
word: sod all
sense: negligible or irrelevant amount
word: sweet FA
sense: negligible or irrelevant amount
word: sweet Fanny Adams
sense: negligible or irrelevant amount
word: zilch
sense: negligible or irrelevant amount
word: zip
sense: person of little importance
word: cipher
sense: person of little importance
word: nobody
sense: person of little importance
word: nonentity
word: value of a function’s variables at zero
sense: identity element of a monoid
word: additive identity
Hyponyms: absolute zero
ground zero
negative zero
positive zero
size zero
Derived terms: aleph-zero
decimal without a zero
go from zero to hero
net-zero
net zero
non-zero
sub-zero
zero air
zero-based budget
zero coupon bond
zero-day
zero deflection
zero-dimensional
zero-emission vehicle
zero-grade
zero gravity
zero hour
zero hundred
zero ideal
zeroize
zeroise
zero-knowledge
zero-knowledge proof
zero-length launching
zero locus
zero method
zero one infinity rule
zero-pass
zero-point energy
zero-rated
zero-sum
zero-sum game
zero vector