Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Zigzag |
ZigzagAdjective1. Having short sharp turns or angles. Adverb1. In a zigzag course or on a zigzag path; "birds flew zigzag across the blue sky". Noun1. An angular shape characterized by sharp turns in alternating directions. Verb1. Travel along a zigzag path: "The river zigzags through the countryside". Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "zigzag" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1808. (references) |
Note: Zigzag \Zig"zag`\, transitive verb. [imperfect & past participle. Zigzagged; Zigzagging.]. (references) |
| Domain | Definition |
Satire | ZIGZAG, v.t. To move forward uncertainly, from side to side, as one carrying the white man's burden. (From zed, z, and jag, an Icelandic word of unknown meaning.) He zedjagged so uncomen wyde Thet non coude pas on eyder syde; So, to com saufly thruh, I been Constreynet for to doodge betwene. Munwele. Source: Devil's Dictionary. |
19th Century Satire | The popular route after a heavy dinner. Old adage, "The longest way round is the drunkard's way home!" Source: Foolish Dictionary, 1904. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
Zigzag is an unincorporated tourist-oriented community within the Mt. Hood Corridor in Oregon, located between Rhododendron and Welches along United States Highway 26.The town is named after the nearby Zigzag River, a tributary which eventually feeds into the Columbia River. One of the ranger stations for the Mount Hood National Forest is located here, in a cabin built in the early 1900s and now on the National Register of Historic Places.
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Zigzag, Oregon."
| The following table is compiled from various sources, across various languages. When English abbreviations or acronyms come from a non-English source, this is noted. | |||
| Entry | Source | Expression | Field |
| ZIP | English | Zigzag Inline Package | Computer - (VRAM) |
Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |||
Synonyms: ZigzagSynonyms: zag (n), zig (n), crank (v). (additional references) |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Angularity | Elbow, knee, knuckle, ankle, groin, crotch, crutch, crane, fluke, scythe, sickle, zigzag, kimbo, akimbo. |
Adjective: angular, bent, crooked, aduncous, uncinated, aquiline, jagged, serrated; falciform, falcated; furcated, forked, bifurcate, zigzag; furcular; hooked; dovetailed; knock kneed, crinkled, akimbo, kimbo, geniculated; oblique. | |
Circuit | Noun: circuit, roundabout way, digression, detour, circumbendibus, ambages, loop; winding; (circuition); zigzag; (deviation). |
Adjective: circuitous, indirect, roundabout; zigzag; (deviating); backhanded. | |
Deviation | Diversion, digression, depart from, aberration; divergence; zigzag; detour; (circuit); divagation. |
Adjective: deviating; Verb: aberrant, errant; excursive, discursive; devious, desultory, loose; rambling; stray, erratic, vagrant, undirected, circuitous, indirect, zigzag; crab-like. | |
Evolution | Adverb: to and fro, up and down, backwards and forwards, hither and yon, seesaw, zigzag, wibble-wabble, in and out, from side to side, like buckets in a well. |
Ornament | Pattern, diaper, powdering, paneling, graining, pargeting; detail; repousse (convexity); texture; richness; tracery, molding, fillet, listel, strapwork, coquillage, flourish, fleur-de-lis, arabesque, fret, anthemion; egg and tongue, egg and dart; astragal, zigzag, acanthus, cartouche; pilaster; (projection); bead, beading; champleve ware, cloisonne ware; frost work, Moresque, Morisco, tooling. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
| Domain | Usage | |
Movie/TV Titles | Zigzag (2002) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title |
Books | |
Theater & Movies | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit | Thumbnail | Description & Credit |
 | The colorful "zigzag" on the right is not the work of a flamboyant artist, but the signature ... Credit: NASA. |  | The Famous zigzag of the Benguet Road, Philippine Islands. Credit: Library of Congress. |
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits. | |||
 |
| "Stone" by Sabine Grund Commentary: "Stones in zigzag structure (brasil shore)." |
Source: photographs selected by the editor, with permission from the photographers. |
| Title | Author | Quote |
Les Miserables | Hugo, Victor | What attracted their attention was, that this goodman was walking zigzag, as if he were drunk |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Health | These symptoms are called an aura. The person may see flashing lights or zigzag lines, or may temporarily lose vision. (references) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| "Zigzag" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 86.76% of the time. "Zigzag" is used about 68 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (singular) | 86.76% | 59 | 44,010 |
| Lexical Verb (infinitive) | 11.76% | 8 | 124,375 |
| Lexical Verb (base form) | 1.47% | 1 | 339,140 |
| Total | 100.00% | 68 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
1. Zigzag, OR |
Expressions using "zigzag": run zigzag ♦ zigzag connection ♦ zigzag fold ♦ zigzag goldenrod ♦ zigzag line ♦ zigzag path ♦ zigzag system. Additional references. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day |
zigzag | 82 |
silla zigzag | 13 |
scan zigzag | 6 |
cleaner zigzag | 6 |
transformer zigzag | 3 |
zigzag rolling papers | 3 |
insert wallet zigzag | 2 |
zigzag oregon | 2 |
chapman zigzag | 2 |
indicator zigzag | 2 |
racer zigzag | 2 |
braid zigzag | 2 |
zigzag papers | 2 |
springs zigzag | 2 |
ascii zigzag | 2 |
hole zigzag | 2 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Language | Translations for "zigzag"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Albanian | zigzag. (various references) | |
Arabic | متعرج (meandrous, serpentine, sinuous, snaky, tortuous, winding), عرج (call, cripple, halt, hobble, lameness, limp), خط متعرج, إنطلق بخط متعرج. (various references) | |
Bulgarian | на зигзаги, зигзаговиден, зигзагообразна линия, зигзагообразна пътека, зигзагообразен, зигзаг, правя зигзагообразни завои, движа се на зиг-заг (weave). (various references) | |
Chinese | 之字形. (various references) | |
Czech | serpentina (double bend, hairpin bend), ostrá zatáèka (sharp turn), klikatý (devious, snaky, tortuous, winding), klikatì, klikatá èára, klièkovat (dribble, hedge one's bets, jink, loop), hadovitì, cikcak. (various references) | |
Danish | Z-kobling (zigzag connection), siksaksystem (zigzag system), siksaksøm (zigzag seam), siksakkobling (zigzag connection), siksakforbindelse (zigzag connection), siksakfold (zigzag fold). (various references) | |
Dutch | zaagvormig. (various references) | |
Esperanto | zigzagi, zigzaga. (various references) | |
Farsi | منکسرکردن (Refract), منشاری , کج ومعوج , جناغی , شکسته , دارای پیچ وخم کردن . (various references) | |
Finnish | polveilla (wind). (various references) | |
French | zigzag. (various references) | |
German | Zickzack. (various references) | |
Greek | τσακιστή γραμμή με γωνίασ. (various references) | |
Hebrew | לזגזג, זגזג, סכסך (zigzag line). (various references) | |
Hungarian | szerpentin (green marble, serpentine, sinuous, streamers, traverse). (various references) | |
Indonesian | berliku-liku (devious, tortuous, winding). (various references) | |
Italian | zigzagare, zigzag. (various references) | |
Japanese Kanji | 雁木 (escapement, hooked stick, stepped pier, toothing gear), 葛折り (winding), 羊腸 (winding), うつ伏せる (falling in a doze, heaving sea, meandering, Rascal!, roller, sinuous, swell, to lie face-down, tortuous, undulation, Villain!, wave motion, winding, You wretch!). (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | がんぎ (escapement, foreplay, hooked stick, stepped pier, toothing gear), うねうね (meandering, sinuous, tortuous, winding), つづらおり (winding, winding road), ようちょう (chastisement, punishment, winding). (various references) | |
Pig Latin | igzagzay.(various references) | |
Portuguese | ziguezaguear, ziguezague. (various references) | |
Romanian | zigzagat, zigzag (crinkum-crankum, fork, jag, wobble), merge în zigzag (wobble), drum în zigzag. (various references) | |
Russian | зигзаг, петлять зигзаг зигзагообразный (zig-zag). (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | cik-cak, ševrdati (stagger). (various references) | |
Spanish | zigzag. (various references) | |
Swedish | sicksack. (various references) | |
Thai | เป็นรูปฟันปลา, เคลื่อนที่เป็นรูปฟันปลา, รูปฟันปลา, คดเคี้ยวไปมา. (various references) | |
Turkish | zikzaklı yol (switchback, switchback road), zikzaklı olmak, zikzaklı, zikzak yapmak (herringbone, weave), zikzak çizmek (weave), zikzak çizerek, zikzak çizen, zikzak (traverse), zígzag. (various references) | |
Ukrainian | робити зигзаги (teeter), зигзагоподібно, зигзагоподібний, зигзаг, п'яний (banged, blind drunk, boiled, boozy, canned, disguised, drunk, drunken, groggy, inebriate, intoxicate, lush, malty, noggy, pickled, pie-eyed, pizz, plastered, raddled, screwed, sodden, soused, sozzled, sozzly, under the table, vinous, wall eyed, wet, winy, woozy). (various references) | |
Vietnamese | hầm hào chữ chi, hình chữ chi, đường chữ chi. (various references) | |
Welsh | igam-ogamu, igam-ogam. (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
| Language | Period | Translations |
| Latin | 500 BCE-Modern | Deltocephalus dorsalis, Inazuma dorsalis, Sanctanus dorsalis, Sogata inazuma, Sogatella inazuma, Trifolium medium. (various references) |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "zigzag": zigzagged, zigzagging, zigzags. (additional references) | |
| |
"Zigzag" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: zigazag, zigzig. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "a-g-g-i-z-z" | |
-2 letters: giga. | |
-3 letters: gag, gig, zag, zig. | |
-4 letters: ag, ai. | |
| Words containing the letters "a-g-g-i-z-z" | |
+1 letter: zigzags. | |
+3 letters: zigzagged. | |
+4 letters: zigzagging. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Modern | 5. Usage: Commercial 6. Images: Slideshow 7. Images: Photo Album 8. Images: Digital Art | 9. Quotations: Fiction 10. Quotations: Non-fiction 11. Usage Frequency 12. Cities | 13. Expressions 14. Expressions: Internet 15. Translations: Modern 16. Translations: Ancient | 17. Abbreviations 18. Acronyms 19. Derivations 20. Anagrams | 21. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
