zoonosis
/zəʊˈɒn.ə.sɪs/
"zoonosis" is a 8-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“zoonosis” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 8
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - An animal disease, such as rabies or anthrax, that can be transmitted to humans.
Corpus desk
Index EN-zoonosis · zoonosis · English
zoonosis · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-LONG 8 letters
- VOW-4 4 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "Z" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | zoonosis |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /zəʊˈɒn.ə.sɪs/ |
| Letters | 8 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “zoonosis” in English
Rare enough to double-check
zoonosis is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun, transcribed /zəʊˈɒn.ə.sɪs/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "An animal disease, such as rabies or anthrax, that can be transmitted to humans.".
zoonosis has no tracked misspelling variants, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
Etymologically, the entry records: From zoo- + (itself from Ancient Greek ζῷον (zōîon, “animal”)) + Ancient Greek νόσος (nósos, “disease”) (compare also nosology); the surface analysis is almost, although not quite, zoo- + -osis; compare also anthroponosis. The correct English form is zoonosis, spelled Z-O-O-N-O-S-I-S.
Definition
- 1An animal disease, such as rabies or anthrax, that can be transmitted to humans.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how zoonosis appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
In his first book since the 2008 essay collection Natural Acts: A Sidelong View of Science and Nature, David Quammen looks at the natural world from yet another angle: the search for the next human pandemic, what epidemiologists call “the next big one.” His quest leads him around the world to study a variety of suspect zoonoses—animal-hosted pathogens tha…
Etymology
From zoo- + (itself from Ancient Greek ζῷον (zōîon, “animal”)) + Ancient Greek νόσος (nósos, “disease”) (compare also nosology); the surface analysis is almost, although not quite, zoo- + -osis; compare also anthroponosis.
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.