Zoning

How to spell zoning

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce zoning

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does zoning mean?

1. nounThe official division of land into areas with set rules for how each may be used or built on.
2. nounThe act of mentally drifting off and losing focus on what is happening around you.

Zoning in a sentence

• The council changed the zoning to allow shops on the high street.

• Halfway through the meeting she caught herself zoning out completely.

• Strict zoning kept factories well away from the new housing estate.

• The long motorway drive left him zoning out at the wheel.

Where does zoning come from?

Language of origin: Greek

The word grows out of zone, which English took in the late 1500s from the Latin zona, itself borrowed from the Greek zone, meaning a 'belt' or 'girdle' worn around the waist. The Greeks used the same word for the imagined bands of climate that circled the globe, which is how zone came to mean a marked-off area or region. By the early twentieth century planners in the United States were dividing cities into areas reserved for housing, industry, or commerce, and the gerund 'zoning' became the standard name for that practice. The spelling keeps the silent final 'e' of zone hidden: the 'e' is dropped before adding '-ing', so it is zoning, never 'zoneing', which is the trap to watch. The same belt-shaped Greek root still circles quietly inside ozone and the geographer's temperate zone.

How the word is built

• zone (from Greek zone: belt, girdle)
• -ing (verbal noun / present participle suffix)