zoological
AmericanOther Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of zoological
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
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The reality of constant financial worries led to Mee donating the zoo to the charity Dartmoor Zoological Society in 2014, with him staying on as a trustee.
From BBC • Feb. 2, 2026
Researchers examining spiders and scorpions at the Zoological Collections Laboratory of the Butantan Institute in São Paulo, Brazil, noticed something unusual on a spider only a few millimeters long.
From Science Daily • Jan. 28, 2026
The facility in western Gujarat state, officially known as the Green Zoological Rescue and Rehabilitation Centre, is run by the son of Asia's richest man.
From Barron's • Nov. 9, 2025
In 1993, the nonprofit San Francisco Zoological Society took over operations, while the city retained ownership of the property.
From Los Angeles Times • Jul. 18, 2025
Eventually Huxley managed to do to Owen what Owen had done to so many others: he had him voted off the councils of the Zoological and Royal societies.
From "A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
