zed

plural zeds

1. CommonwealthIrelandThe name of the Latin script letter Z/z.

   Zzz...With all those ʻzedsʼ I'll be sending you to sleep.

   2021, Pat Manser, More Than Words: The Making of the Macquarie Dictionary, Sydney: Macquarie Dictionary, page 298

   Synonyms: 1-3

2. CommonwealthIrelandin compoundsSomething Z-shaped.

   zed-bar

3. CommonwealthIrelandcolloquialplural normallySleep.

   I'm going to go get some zeds.

   Synonyms: zee

4. CommonwealthIrelandslangA zombie.

   A horde of zeds began to shuffle into the shopping mall.

present singular third person zeds · participle present zedding · participle past zedded · past zedded

1. CommonwealthIrelandUKinformalintransitiveTo sleep or nap. (Compare zzz, catch some z's.)

   I guess I must have zedded, for I find a police officer, the same one that nicked me, shaking me.

   1992, David Robins, Tarnished vision: crime and conflict in the inner city

   2 more examples

   Zedding hogs. Sleep sippers and spitters. Look at 'em cooking in their own snoring heat. One nose after another.

   1991, Jim Cartwright, Bed

   "Zedding away." "God, I was having the most awful dream. That you'd got lost by the sea and I couldn't find you and something was chasing me, me and Evie."

   2007, Polly Williams, The Yummy Mummy

2. CommonwealthIrelandUKintransitiverareTo zigzag; to move with sharp alternating turns.

   We were zedding hell-bells up the hill towards Cervione, with a bank of road metal and a precipice on our left...

   1931, Reginald Rankin, The Collected Works of Lt. Colonel Sir Reginald Rankin

   1 more example

   Licking his lips, his hand zedded on my thigh and he commented, penetratingly, that it wasn't pussy, but that driving the unmade road wasn't at all bad.

   1994, Tibor Fischer, The thought gang

1. A diminutive of the male given name Zedekiah.

   “So you changed it.” “Yes.” He turns off the tap. “Why did you choose the name Zed? What does it mean?” “Nothing. It's the last letter of the alphabet.”

   1974, Alison Lurie, The War Between the Tates

plural Zeds

1. alternativeAlternative form of Z (“a member of Generation Z”).

   In today’s changing environment, new generations (e.g. Millennials and Zeds) learn differently.

   2020, Nuno Alberto Rodrigues Santos Loureiro, Lúcio Agostinho Barreiros dos Santos, “Use of Information and Communication Technologies in the Classroom: An Exploratory Study in Professional Military Education”, in Álvaro Rocha, Robson Pacheco Pereira, editors, Developments and Advances in Defense and Security: Proceedings of MICRADS 2019 (Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies), Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd., →ISBN, page 452

   2 more examples

   Youth jargon is in constant flux. What may be all the go today, may disappear tomorrow. Herein some of the slang may be recognisable to Y-ers but not Zeds and vice versa.

   2011, Mark McCrindle, Emily Wolfinger, Word Up: A Lexicon and Guide to Communication in the 21st Century, Halstead Press, →ISBN, page 175

   While Millennials started using computers for games, word processing, and rudimentary e-mail, Zeds have been fully immersed in social media from an early age.

   2017, Virginia Roach, “Foreword”, in Bruce S. Cooper, Carlos R. McCray, Stephen V. Coffin, editors, Why School Leaders Need Vision: Managing Scarcity, Mandates, and Conflicting Goals for Educational Quality, Rowman & Littlefield, →ISBN, page ix

2. Alternative letter-case form of zed (“the name of the Latin script letter Z/z”).