zed
/zɛd/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.02 in modern English
13
Scrabble Score
3
Letters
1
Syllables
3
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
The name of the Latin script letter Z/z.
name
A diminutive of the male given name Zedekiah.
noun
Alternative form of Z (“a member of Generation Z”).
Example Sentences
- "Zzz...With all those ʻzedsʼ I'll be sending you to sleep."
- "zed-bar"
- "I'm going to go get some zeds."
- "A horde of zeds began to shuffle into the shopping mall."
- "Zedding hogs. Sleep sippers and spitters. Look at 'em cooking in their own snoring heat. One nose after another."
- "I guess I must have zedded, for I find a police officer, the same one that nicked me, shaking me."
Etymology
From Middle English zed, zedde, zede, from Old French zede, from Late Latin zeta, from Ancient Greek ζῆτα (zêta), from Hebrew ז (zayin) with influence from βῆτα (bêta), ἦτα (êta) and θῆτα (thêta). The letter had a rare usage in Old English, such as in bezt, where it represented "ts" (compare the German, Italian, and Finnish pronunciation of Z). For the sleep sense, see zzz. The zombie sense comes from the initial letter. Doublet of zeta. Cognate to Spanish zeta, German Zett, French zède, Italian zeta, and perhaps Portuguese zê.
Origin
Word Breakdown
Usage
- Colloquial
- Slang
- British usage
- Informal
- Intransitive verb