Zoom

How to spell zoom

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce zoom

What does zoom mean?

1. verbTo move or travel very quickly, often with a low humming or rushing sound.
2. verbTo change the focal length of a lens so a subject appears closer or further away.

Zoom in a sentence

• The sports cars zoom past the grandstand at full speed.

• The photographer used the long lens to zoom in on the eagle.

• Delivery vans zoom around the city all morning.

• Editing software lets you zoom into a single pixel of the image.

Where does zoom come from?

Language of origin: Other

The word zoom began life in English in the late nineteenth century as an imitative or echoic coinage, an attempt to capture in spelling the low, sustained humming or buzzing sound of something moving quickly through the air. The doubled vowel 'oo' was chosen precisely to suggest that drawn-out droning noise, much as 'boom' and 'whoosh' mimic their own sounds. Early in the twentieth century aviators adopted it for a sudden steep climb of an aircraft, and from there the sense of rapid upward or forward movement spread into general use. In the 1940s the world of photography and cinema gave it a fresh life: the 'zoom lens' could rapidly enlarge a distant subject, and 'to zoom in' became standard. Its spelling is mercifully phonetic, so the only thing a writer needs to remember is the simple double 'o'.

How the word is built

• zoom (imitative root suggesting a sustained buzzing or rushing sound)