Search

Also called zoological garden. a parklike area in which live animals are kept in cages or large enclosures for public exhibition.
Informal. a place, activity, or group marked by chaos or unrestrained behavior.
a combining form meaning “living being,” “animal,” used in the formation of compound words:
zoometry; zooplankton.
Contemporary Examples

He posted two tweets about Marius, raging against the zoo’s breeding practices and paying tribute to the young giraffe.
Hollywood Mourns the Death of Marius the Giraffe Amy Zimmerman February 13, 2014

The worst thing they do is break into a zoo and ride the merry-go-round.
What the New ‘Endless Love’s Fireplace Sex Scene Is Missing Sujay Kumar February 12, 2014

There, his father, Santosh Patel (Adil Hussain), and his beautiful mother (Tabu), run a zoo.
Is Ang Lee’s Visually Breathtaking Life of Pi This Year’s Slumdog Millionaire? Marlow Stern September 28, 2012

Hanna explains, “I want no involvement with anyone (from that zoo) if this kind of killing is practiced.”
Hollywood Mourns the Death of Marius the Giraffe Amy Zimmerman February 13, 2014

Even before it was unveiled, critics were attacking the 21st-century version of the offensive original “zoo.”
Norway’s Controversial Human Zoo Is Back Nina Strochlic May 18, 2014

Historical Examples

There are a large number of monkeys at the zoo; they are never still, and so funny that they make you laugh outright sometimes.
The Children’s Book of London Geraldine Edith Mitton

Yes,” said Dyke, “we are going to try and get them to England as a present for the zoo.
Diamond Dyke George Manville Fenn

He preferred to navigate the zoo on his own white-gaitered legs.
Mince Pie

Author: Christopher Darlington Morley

Release Date: October 10, 2004 [eBook #13694]
Christopher Darlington Morley

Guess I’ll have to wait till they auction off some of the animals in the Washington zoo.
Jerry’s Charge Account Hazel Hutchins Wilson

In the midst of the private gardens stood the Hall, shut off by immense iron palisades, like a lion in a cage at the zoo.
The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns Arnold Bennett

noun (pl) zoos
a place where live animals are kept, studied, bred, and exhibited to the public Formal term zoological garden
combining form
indicating animals: zooplankton
n.

c.1847, short for Zoological Gardens of the London Zoological Society, established 1828 in Regent’s Park to house the society’s collection of wild animals. From comb. form of Greek zoion “an animal,” literally “a living being,” from PIE root *gwei- “to live, life” (cf. Greek bios “life,” Old English cwicu “living;” see bio-). Slang meaning “crowded and chaotic place” first recorded 1935.

zoo- or zo-
pref.
Animal; animal kingdom: zoonosis.

adj,adj phr

Intoxicated by narcotics or alcohol; high, stoned: zonked, one step past being stoned/ Either while I was still zonked out or in the shower (1960s+ Narcotics)
Very enthusiastic; excited; high: Rene Carpenter remembers Gilruth as ”a kindly, wonderful man who was zonked on this project” (1970s+)
Exhausted; beat, pooped: After just an hour of that I was zonked (1972+)

[echoic of a heavy blow; a 1929 Bookman article on sound effects is entitled ”Socko, Whamo, and Sonk!”]

Berkeley Yacc
tool, file format
A data compression program and format by Rahul Dhesi. Zoo is reported to use the same Lempel Ziv algorithm as LHA. It is available for many platforms and source is available. .zoo archives are handled by many other PC archiving programs.
Version 2.10 was released in 1989. Search the web for zoo210 to obtain an executable.
Description (http://sources.isc.org/archiver/zoo2.txt).
(2000-07-05)
zoological garden
see: it’s a zoo