Names for the number 0 in English

There are names for the number 0 in English and related concepts, and there are concomitant names for the decades whose tens column contains the number 0. The names for the number 0 include "zero", "cipher", "null", "naught", "nought", "love", "duck", "nil", "nada", "zilch", "zip", (the letter) "o" (often spelled "oh"), "aught", and "ought". There are various subtleties of usage amongst them all.

Some usage of these terms is driven by a desire to maintain an explicit distinction between digit zero and letter O, which, because they are both usually represented graphically in English orthography (and indeed most orthographies using Latin script and Arabic numerals) with a simple circle or oval, have a centuries-long history of being frequently conflated. Thus some of the terms discussed below are the phonetic analog of the graphical convention of slashed zero—that is, both are an effort to keep digit zero and letter O duly differentiated.

"Zero" and "cipher" are both names for the number 0, but the use of "cipher" for the number is rare and only literary in English today. They are doublets, which means they have entered the language through different routes but have the same etymological root, which is the Arabic "" (which transliterates as "sifr"). Via Italian this became "zefiro" and thence "zero" in modern English, Portuguese, French, Catalan and Italian ("cero" in Spanish). But via Spanish it became "" and thence "" in Old French and "cipher" in modern English (and "" in modern French).

"Zero" is more commonly used in mathematics and science, whereas "cipher" is used only in a literary style. Both also have other connotations. One may refer to a person as being a "social cipher", but would name them "Mr. Zero", for example.

In his discussion of "naught" and "nought" in Modern English Usage (see below), H. W. Fowler uses "cipher" to name the number 0.

In English, "naught" and "nought" mean the number 0, or a figurative "nothing", whereas "aught" and "ought" (the latter in its noun sense) strictly speaking mean "all" or "anything", and are not names for the number 0. Nevertheless, they are sometimes used as such in American English, for example "aught" as a placeholder for zero in the pronunciation of calendar year numbers. That practice is then also reapplied in the pronunciation of derived terms, such as when the rifle caliber .30-06 Springfield (introduced in 1906) is accordingly referred to by the name "thirty-aught-six".

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