| Kenneth G. Wilson (1923–). The Columbia Guide to Standard American English. 1993. |
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| zoom (n., v.) |
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| is an onomatopoeia, an echoic word meaning “to move rapidly with a humming or buzzing sound.” For airplanes it nearly always means “to climb rapidly,” but otherwise it is Standard to indicate rapid motion in a level direction, or up or down, or (as with a zoom lens) out and in, far away or in close. Interesting point: in many such uses the buzzing sound of speed seems to have disappeared. | 1 |
| The combined form with the verb, to zoom in on, is an idiom meaning “to magnify the focus (literal or figurative), to concentrate attention on a particular rather than a general view.” This use too seems to have lost any vestige of the original sound of speed in the word. | 2 |
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| | | The Columbia Guide to Standard American English. Copyright © 1993 Columbia University Press. |
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