Emily Dickinson Lexicon

ZE'RO, n. [It.]

Cipher; nothing. The point of a thermometer from which it is graduated. Zero, in the thermometers of Celsius and Reaumur, is at the point at which water congeals. The zero of Fahrenheit's thermometer is fixed at the point at which the mercury stands when immersed in a mixture of snow and common salt. In Wedgewood's pyrometer, the zero corresponds with 1077° on Fahrenheit's scale.