zed

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English zede, also zed and zedde,^[2] probably borrowed from Old French zede,^[3][4][2][5] which the revised OED takes as an unrecorded Old French forerunner of zède, recorded from 1694.^[6] Merriam-Webster Unabridged and Dictionary.com give Middle French zede.^[7][8] The French name comes from Latin zēta,^[6][3][9] which is from Ancient Greek ζῆτα (zêta), the name of the Greek letter,^[6][9] also the source of zeta and of Italian zeta, recorded in the 14th century.^[6][9] Etymonline traces the Greek name to that of the Hebrew letter zayin, literally "weapon", named for the letter's shape.^[3] Klein notes that many scholars derive it so, with the ending shaped after the following letter names ἦτα (êta) and θῆτα (thêta), but he favoured a Semitic word for "olive".^[9] The American name zee is an alteration of zed after letter names such as bee, cee and dee.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

The name of the letter Z: about 1175, in a list of the names of the letters, which gives "Z: zede".^[6][2] Etymonline likewise dates it to the late 12th century,^[3] and Merriam-Webster Unabridged to the 13th century.^[7]

Semantic evolution

The word has always been the name of the letter; it appears again before 1425 in a manuscript of Mandeville.^[2] Johnson (1755) defined it simply as the name of the letter and quoted Shakespeare's insult “Thou whoreson zed, thou unnecessary letter”.^[10] The form zee is recorded from 1580 in Bullokar,^[6] and Etymonline and Merriam-Webster date the American pronunciation zee to the 1670s.^[3][7] Other dialect names for the letter were izzard, ezod, uzzard and zod,^[3] and a variant zad, obsolete except in dialect,^[11] came to mean a crooked person or thing in 1725.^[3] The word later named things of the letter's shape: from 1891 a steel girder with a Z-shaped section, used especially in shipbuilding.^[6][11] Since 1973 zeds has been colloquial for sleep, the letter standing for the sound of snoring, as in catch some zeds;^[6] in Australian slang zed was a snore from 1968.^[12]

Timeline

• c. 1175 – the name of the letter Z.^[6][2]
• 1580 – the variant zee.^[6]
• 1725 – the variant zad, a crooked person or thing.^[3]
• 1891 – a steel girder with a Z-shaped section, also zed bar.^[6]
• 1968 – in Australian slang, a snore.^[12]
• 1973 – in the plural, sleep.^[6]

Meanings

Noun

1. (chiefly British) The letter z.^[7][5][6]
2. A steel girder with a Z-shaped cross-section; also zed bar (now chiefly historical).^[6][11]
3. (colloquial) zeds, in the plural: sleep, as in catch some zeds.^[6][12]

Related words

• zeta
• zee
• izzard
• z
• zayin

Usage notes

Zed is the British name of the letter, and zee the American one.^[5][7] The OED notes that zee is now chiefly American,^[6] and the Shorter Oxford marks it as now US.^[11] Etymonline quotes Fitzedward Hall (1873), who blamed Webster for teaching Americans to say zee.^[3]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
5. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
8. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
9. ^ a b c d Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
10. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
11. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ a b c Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com