zoological

American  

[zoh-uh-loj-i-kuhl] / ˌzoʊ əˈlɒdʒ ɪ kəl /

Often zoologic

adjective

1. of or relating to zoology.

2. relating to or concerned with animals.

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Other Word Forms

• nonzoologic adjective
• nonzoological adjective
• nonzoologically adverb
• pseudozoological adjective
• zoologically adverb

Etymology

Origin of zoological

First recorded in 1800–10; zoolog(y) + -ical

Explanation

Anything zoological is about animals. It’s logical that you’d use the word at a zoo, where critters and beasts hang out. This is an easy word to remember if you think about zoos. In fact, zoo is short for Zoological Gardens, the first of which was created by the London Zoological Society to house the society’s wild animals. Zoo comes from the Greek word for animal, zoion, plus -ology for “the study of” and then -ical, an ending that makes the word an adjective. If you’re describing something that has to do with the study of animals, zoological is your word.

Example Sentences

Belgium's AfricaMuseum is the country's biggest dedicated to the Congo, displaying millions of colonial-era objects and zoological specimens.

From Barron's • Feb. 12, 2026

To reconstruct the fungus's historical distribution, international collaborators examined 2,280 amphibian specimens collected between 1815 and 2014 and stored in zoological museums worldwide.

From Science Daily • Jan. 19, 2026

Only seven other zoological collections in the world keep greater bamboo lemurs.

From BBC • Oct. 21, 2024

We, and anything structured remotely like us, are in the zoological minority.

From Slate • Jul. 18, 2024

Now that Sacred’s all caught up, I take my zoological diary out of my bag, along with my pencil.

From "Hello, Universe" by Erin Entrada Kelly

Related Words

• bodily
• natural