zero

CEFRA1

/ˈzɪəɹəʊ/

number · noun · numeral

Türkçe translations

Translating…

In plain English

01
number
The number that means none or no amount.
02
noun
A person or thing considered to have no value or importance.

Examples

The temperature dropped to zero degrees Celsius during the cold night.
Water freezes at zero degrees Celsius, doesn't it?

At a glance

Sits at A1 on the CEFR scale

Senses: 5
Parts of speech: 3
Citations: 5
Synonyms: 5

Also pronounced

/ˈziɹoʊ/
/ˈzɪə.ɹaʉ/

Deep Dive

number

Extra meanings

The digit 0 in the decimal, binary, and all other base numbering systems.
The numeric symbol that represents the cardinal number zero.

numeral

Extra meaning

The cardinal number occurring before one and that denotes no quantity or amount at all, represented in Arabic numerals as 0.

More examples

In context

The thermometer went down below zero.
A cheque for zero dollars and zero cents crashed the computers on division by zero.
In unary and k-adic notation in general, zero is the empty string.

Quick test

Two questions on this entry. Nothing is scored.

Question 1 · Quick check

The temperature dropped to blank degrees outside, so all water froze solid.

Practise this properly in the app, where the word comes back before you forget it.

Nearby

Citations

The word in print, with each source given in full.

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.”
2024 July 22, Nimi Princewill, “Uganda’s President Museveni warns citizens they are ‘playing with fire’ over planned protests”, in CNN
"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.
2025 May 14, Andy Comfort, “Holding out for a zero...”, in RAIL, number 1035, page 58
You have to salute Gerrard's bravery in accepting the challenge of trying to turn Rangers around given that he has zero experience in senior management. Immortality beckons if he does it.
2018 May 4, Tom English, “Steven Gerrard: A 'seriously clever or recklessly stupid' Rangers appointment”, in BBC Sport
Traffic on the encrypted channels used by senior Iraqi generals had peaked and zeroed, then peaked again, and zeroed again.
1997, Tom Clancy, Executive Orders, page 340
They discovered the object code for the simulator that was DON, and zeroed it. DON — or his creator — was clever and had planted many copies,
2001, Mark Pesce, “True Magic”, in James Frenkel, editor, True Names by Vernor Vinge and the Opening of the Cyberspace Frontier

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Origin

number

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.

Deep Dive

number

numeral

More examples

Related

Quick test

The temperature dropped to blank— degrees outside, so all water froze solid.

Nearby

Origin

number

The temperature dropped to blank degrees outside, so all water froze solid.