Did you
know?

zilch
adjective or noun

- zero; nothing

- A person regarded as being insignificant; a nobody

Merriam-Webster

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WORD ORIGIN

The origin of zilch is unknown, it could possibly be a combination of zero and nil.

The Online Etymology Dictionary suggests a couple of potential sources including the name of a comic character in the 1930s magazine Ballyhoo (Mr. Zilch) and the slang Joe Zilsch, a 1900s college expression meaning an insignificant person.

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TAKE CARE USING ZILCH

Zilch can be used in many different contexts and is often applied in a negative sense:

- “He knows zilch about marketing.”

- “I got zilch for my old computer at the flea market.”

A word of caution. In conversation, you’ll often hear zilch in double-negative phrases, it's a grammatically bad habit:

- “He doesn’t know zilch about marketing.”

- “I didn’t get zilch for my old computer at the flea market.”

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SYNONYMS

- nothing, or a value equal to zero:

aught, blank, not a (single) thing squat, nihil, duck diddly, null, nothing further (else, extra), ought, oblivion, not one (any, a hint of, an iota), diddly-squat, goose egg, hill of beans, nada, naught, nil, nix, none, not anything, not a sausage, nothing, nothing at all, nothingness, nought, nowt, null, nullity, o, oh, sod all, squat, sweet Fanny Adams, sweet F.A., void, zero, ZILCH, zip, zippo

- someone who is considered insignificant or of no importance:

amateur, bozo, brat, commoner, cypher, dandiprat, dwarf, git, gnat, half-pint, insect, insignificancy, insignificant person, johnny, lightweight, little guy (man), man of straw, mediocrity, minnow, nix, no-hoper, no-mark, nobody, non-person, non-starter, nonbeing, nonentity, nothing, nullity, number, pawn, person of little consequence (no account, no importance), pigmy, pip-squeak, pup, puppy, pygmy, runt, second-rater, shrimp, small beer (fry, potato, potatoes), snippersnapper, spear carrier, sprat, squirt, squit, statistic, stripling, twerk, twerp, twit, unknown, upstart, whippersnapper, wimp, zero, ZILCH

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SMUGGLE OWAD into an English conversation, say something like:

“ZILCH reminds us that even nothing is worth something, and that even a nobody is a somebody!”

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HERZLICHEN DANK to all readers helping me keep OWAD alive with single or monthly donations at:

https://donorbox.org/please-become-a-friend-of-owad-3

and,

Paul Smith, IBAN: DE75 7316 0000 0002 5477 40