zoom

• IPA^(key): /zuːm/, enPR: zo͞om

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -uːm

Uncertain. The verb was first attested c. 1892, as a noun in 1918 and as an interjection in 1942. Apparently related to Scots soom (“to buzz, hum”), dialectal English and Scots soom, swoom, sweem (“to spin or twirl at high speed”). Compare also dialectal English sweem (“to swoon, become dizzy or faint”).

zoom (plural zooms)

1. A humming noise from something moving very fast.

   the zoom of traffic

2. (figurative) A quick ascent.
3. (figurative) A big increase.
4. An augmentation of a view, by varying the focal length of a lens, or digitally.

   What's the zoom like on your camera?

zoom (third-person singular simple present zooms, present participle zooming, simple past and past participle zoomed)

1. To move fast with a humming noise.

   We zoomed along the highway.

   • 1957, Jack Kerouac, On the Road, Viking Press, →OCLC:

     […] and it was strange sitting in their brand-new comfortable car and hearing them talk of exams as we zoomed smoothly into town.

2. (aviation) To zoom climb.
3. To move rapidly.
4. To go up sharply.

   prices zoomed

5. (photography) To change the focal length of a zoom lens.
6. To manipulate a display so as to magnify or shrink it.

   to zoom in or zoom out

7. (transitive) To check someone out; to investigate someone that one is interested in.
   • 1985 August 27, Aretha Franklin, Preston Glass, Narada Michael Walden, “Who's Zoomin' Who”, in Who's Zoomin' Who?, performed by Aretha Franklin, track 4:

     (Who's zoomin' who?) / Take another look and tell me, baby / (Who's zoomin' who?) / Who's zoomin' who? / (Who's zoomin' who?) / Now the fish jumped off the hook, didn't I, baby? / (Who's zoomin' who?) / Yeah

   • 1990 December 16, Chris Nealon, quoting Al Cunningham, “Essence Magazine Agrees To Run Gay Advertisement”, in Gay Community News, volume 18, number 22, page 13:

     "It boggles my mind what kind of mentality is at work there." He pointed to two recent issues of the magazine that featured cover stories were about Whitney Houston and Luther Vandross, two pop music icons whose sexual orientations have been widely speculated on in Black lesbian and gay communities. "It makes you wonder if it's an insult to the intelligence of Essence’s lesbian and gay leadership," Cunningham said. "Who's really zooming whom here?"

• → Dutch: zoomen
• → Finnish: zoomata
• → French: zoomer
• → German: zoomen
• → Italian: zoomare
• → Norwegian Bokmål: zoome

zoom

1. Representing a humming sound
   • 1918, Annie Vivanti Chartres, The Outrage, page 196:

     Makowsky was playing the Bassgeige. Zoom... zoom-zoom.... The rest of the orchestra would join in presently.

2. Suggesting something moving quickly
   • 1939, Henry Miller, Tropic of Capricorn, Grove Press, published 1962, page 244:

     I would dance a few light fantastic steps to show which way the wind lay, and zoom! Like a breeze I was on the piano stool and doing a velocity exercise.

3. Suggesting a sudden change, especially an improvement or an increase

A genericization of the trademark Zoom, a video teleconferencing software.

zoom (third-person singular simple present zooms, present participle zooming, simple past and past participle zoomed)

1. To participate in a video teleconferencing call.

zoom (plural zooms)

1. A video teleconferencing call.
   • 2022 September 27, Barclay Bram, “My Therapist, the Robot”, in The New York Times‎^[1]:

     Then, later that day, I logged onto a zoom call and my mother and I set up our yoga mats in the living room, as we had been doing a couple of times a week during the pandemic.

• Mozo, mozo

From Middle Dutch sôom, from Old Dutch *sōm, from Proto-West Germanic *saum, from Proto-Germanic *saumaz (“that which is sewn”).

• IPA^(key): /zoːm/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Hyphenation: zoom
• Rhymes: -oːm

zoom m (plural zomen, diminutive zoompje n)

1. edge, border
2. hem (border of a cloth that is turned around and stitched)

• Negerhollands: soom
• → Caribbean Javanese: sum
• → Indonesian: som

Borrowed from English zoom.

• IPA^(key): /zuːm/
• Hyphenation: zoom

zoom m (plural zooms, no diminutive)

1. zoom (augmentation of a view)

• zoomen

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

• IPA^(key): /zoːm/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Hyphenation: zoom
• Rhymes: -oːm

zoom

1. inflection of zomen:
   1. first-person singular present indicative
   2. (in case of inversion) second-person singular present indicative
   3. imperative

• IPA^(key): /zuːm/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Hyphenation: zoom

zoom

1. inflection of zoomen:
   1. first-person singular present indicative
   2. (in case of inversion) second-person singular present indicative
   3. imperative

Borrowed from English zoom.

• IPA^(key): /zum/

• Audio (France (Lyon)):

  (file)

• Homophone: zooms
• Hyphenation: zoom

zoom m (plural zooms)

1. (photography) zoom

• zoomer

• “zoom”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012

• IPA^(key): /zuːm/

• Audio (Germany (Berlin)):

  (file)

zoom

1. singular imperative of zoomen
2. (colloquial) first-person singular present of zoomen

Unadapted borrowing from English zoom.

• Audio:

  (file)

zoom m (invariable)

1. (photography) zoom

• zoomare
• zoomata

zoom

1. imperative of zoome

• zum (rare)

Unadapted borrowing from English zoom.

• Rhymes: (Brazil) -ũ, (Portugal) -um

zoom m (plural zooms)

1. zoom (augmentation of an image)
2. (photography) zoom lens (lens whose focal length can be rapidly changed)

• “zoom”, in Dicionário Aulete Digital (in Portuguese), Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon Editora Digital, 2008–2026
• “zoom”, in Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa (in Portuguese), Lisbon: Priberam, 2008–2026

Unadapted borrowing from English zoom.

zoom n (plural zoomuri)

1. zoom

Borrowed from English zoom.

• IPA^(key): /zuːm/

zoom m inan (genitive singular zoomu, declension pattern of dub)

1. (photography) zoom

• zoomový

zoom m (plural zooms)

1. (photography) zoom

• Seco, Manuel; Andrés, Olimpia; Ramos, Gabino (2023), “zoom”, in Diccionario del español actual (in Spanish), third digital edition, Fundación BBVA