zero

Webster's Dictionary (1913)

Origin: F. zéro, from Ar. çafrun, çifrun, empty, a cipher. Cf. Cipher.

1. Arith. A cipher; nothing; naught.

2. The point from which the graduation of a scale, as of a thermometer, commences.

☞ Zero in the Centigrade, or Celsius thermometer, and in the Réaumur thermometer, is at the point at which water congeals. The zero of the Fahrenheit thermometer is fixed at the point at which the mercury stands when immersed in a mixture of snow and common salt. In Wedgwood's pyrometer, the zero corresponds with 1077° on the Fahrenheit scale. See Illust. of Thermometer.

3. Fig.: The lowest point; the point of exhaustion; as, his patience had nearly reached zero.

Absolute zero. See under Absolute. — Zero method Physics, a method of comparing, or measuring, forces, electric currents, etc., by so opposing them that the pointer of an indicating apparatus, or the needle of a galvanometer, remains at, or is brought to, zero, as contrasted with methods in which the deflection is observed directly; — called also null method. — Zero point, the point indicating zero, or the commencement of a scale or reckoning.

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913), from GCIDE 0.54

Free On-line Dictionary of Computing

<language> An object oriented extension of Z.

["Object Orientation in Z", S. Stepney et al eds, Springer 1992]. [Jargon File]

(1995-03-30)

1.<character> 0, ASCI character 48. Numeric zero, as opposed to the letter "O" (the 15th letter of the English alphabet). In their unmodified forms they look a lot alike, and various kluges invented to make them visually distinct have compounded the confusion.

If your zero is centre-dotted and letter-O is not, or if letter-O looks almost rectangular but zero looks more like an American football stood on end (or the reverse), you're probably looking at a modern character display (though the dotted zero seems to have originated as an option on IBM 3270 controllers). If your zero is slashed but letter-O is not, you're probably looking at an old-style ASCII graphic set descended from the default typewheel on the venerable ASR-33 Teletype (Scandinavians, for whom slashed-O is a letter, curse this arrangement).

If letter-O has a slash across it and the zero does not, your display is tuned for a very old convention used at IBM and a few other early mainframe makers (Scandinavians curse *this* arrangement even more, because it means two of their letters collide). Some Burroughs/Unisys equipment displays a zero with a *reversed* slash. And yet another convention common on early line printers left zero unornamented but added a tail or hook to the letter-O so that it resembled an inverted Q or cursive capital letter-O. [Jargon File]

(1995-01-24)

2.To set to zero. Usually said of small pieces of data, such as bits or words (especially in the construction "zero out").

3.To erase; to discard all data from. Said of disks and directories, where "zeroing" need not involve actually writing zeroes throughout the area being zeroed. One may speak of something being "logically zeroed" rather than being "physically zeroed".

See scribble.

(1999-02-07)

The Jargon File

1.To set to 0. Usually said of small pieces of data, such as bits or words (esp. in the construction zero out).

2.To erase; to discard all data from. Said of disks and directories, where ‘zeroing’ need not involve actually writing zeroes throughout the area being zeroed. One may speak of something being logically zeroed rather than being physically zeroed. See scribble.