zeroes

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of zero.

   The final balance ended in a long string of zeroes.

   Several zeroes were missing from the printed total, throwing off the entire figure.

   Note

   Only the countable uses of zero take a plural. These are the digits in a long figure, the points on a scale, and the values at which a mathematical function equals nothing, as in a polynomial's zeroes. The informal 'nothing' use stays uncountable and has no plural. The same spelling also serves the present-tense verb (she zeroes the scale). The noun follows a number or article, and the verb follows a subject.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present indicative of zero.

   Each morning the gunner zeroes his rifle on the practice range.

   The software zeroes the session counter whenever a user logs out.

   Note

   Behind this one form sit three different jobs. The first is resetting a quantity to nothing, as when the software zeroes a counter. The second is making something disappear. The third is adjusting an instrument until its error is small enough to ignore, as when a gunner zeroes a rifle. Only the resetting sense is marked transitive, so check which job a sentence is doing before supplying an object.

3. 3
   nounrareplural

   A century's opening decade: the years numbered '00 through '09, as in 2000 to 2009; also called the noughties.

   Pop music in the zeroes shifted decisively toward digital downloads.

   Many of the city's tallest towers went up during the zeroes.

   Similarnoughties, aughts

   Note

   A rare name, always plural and almost always preceded by the: in the zeroes, during the zeroes. Because few readers meet it, it can stumble where the noughties or simply the 2000s would pass unnoticed. It can in principle name the opening decade of any century, the 1800s and 1900s included. That is one more reason to anchor it with a date the first time it appears.

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