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noun A1 Beginner Common

zoo

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Zoo (noun) means a park where people can see living animals on display. Example: “We took the children to the zoo to see the giraffes.”

noun
1
A park where people can see living animals on display.
"The London Zoo was built in 1828."
"We took the children to the zoo to see the giraffes."
"The zoo is building a new enclosure for its penguins."
"Our class visited the zoo and sketched the monkeys in our notebooks."
2
Any place that feels wild, busy and chaotic.
"The kitchen was a zoo during the lunchtime rush."
"Mornings at our house are a complete zoo with three young children."
"The station turned into a zoo when every train was delayed."
"The shopping center was a zoo the week before Christmas."
3
A big, mixed collection of things.
"The shop was a zoo of antiques, gadgets and odd souvenirs."
"Our software has become a zoo of tools that nobody fully understands."
"His garage is a zoo of bikes, boxes and broken lamps."
"But powerful as the quark model and the electroweak theory were in describing the zoo of subatomic particles, this still left a huge gap." — Michio Kaku, The God Equation (2021)
4
A short way of saying zoophile.
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We took the children to the _____ to see the giraffes.

Etymology

Clipping of zoological garden or zoological park, now the usual form. See zoology. * Sense 5 is a clipping of zoophile or zoophilia.

Related words

Rhymes for zoo

See all rhymes for zoo →

Frequently asked questions

What is the meaning of zoo?
"zoo" (noun) means a park where people can see living animals on display.
What is another word for zoo?
Other words for "zoo" include menagerie.
What are the different meanings of zoo?
"zoo" has 3 main meanings: 1. A park where people can see living animals on display; 2. Any place that feels wild, busy and chaotic; 3. A big, mixed collection of things.
How do you use zoo in a sentence?
Example: "We took the children to the zoo to see the giraffes."

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Definitions from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · etymology from Wiktionary