zoo

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   the facility where wild animals are housed for exhibition

   The children like to visit the zoo, especially the monkey cage.

2. 2
   noun

   A park where live animals are exhibited.

   The London Zoo was built in 1828.

3. 3
   noun

   Any place that is wild, crowded, or chaotic.

   The shopping center was a zoo the week before Christmas.

4. 4
   noun

   A large and varied collection of something.

   After his insightful book The Art of Alfred Hitchcock, Spoto published The Dark Side of Genius, a portrayal of the elderly director as a lonely man who was a veritable zoo of desires, suspicions, fears, and addictions (food, drink, romantic infatuation, and filmmaking).

5. 5
   noun

   The jungle.

   I'm not all that unhappy about being out on an actual patrol, but there's a worried feeling wandering around the back of my mind, not exactly fear, more like a sort of lurking anxiety at being out in the dreaded jungle, the zoo, where the enemy hides.

6. 6
   noun

   Clipping of zoophile.

   Zoophiles, or 'zoos,' are sexually and emotionally attracted to animals, as in a sexual orientation.

Etymology

Clipping of zoological garden or zoological park, now the usual form. See zoology. Sense 5 is a clipping of zoophile or zoophilia.