ground zero
2
6.3
- noun
- /ˈɡraʊnd ˈzɪəroʊ/
:
zona cero
- Shortly after 7 p.m., crews began heading into ground zero of the attack to search for survivors and recover bodies.
- miles from ground zero
- yards from ground zero
Examples
-
In fact, the United States slid from the moral high ground at the outbreak of World War II to nuclear ground zero by the end of it.
Academic text (2005) -
The bomb fell as I was walking to school and I was about one kilometer away from ground zero.
-
...if he took off within 2.5 miles of ground zero.
-
The damage appears to taper off further away from ground zero.
-
The damage appears to taper off further away from ground zero.
Synonyms
1
8.4
The point on the ground directly under the center of an explosion like a bomb
Surface Forms
Morphology
The constituents 'ground' (earth surface) and 'zero' (origin point) do suggest a location that is the starting or reference point on the ground, so a learner might infer a literal 'point on the ground.' However, the conventional use to mean the site of a major disaster or attack (originally a nuclear blast point and later extended metaphorically) is a specialized, culture-specific extension that many B1 learners would not fully predict without prior exposure or background knowledge.
Etymology
Ground zero comes from the image of the exact spot on the ground that is at zero distance from a bomb blast, the place hit first and hardest. So ground zero means 'the exact point on the ground most affected by a bomb or explosion'.