“ ZERO, the figure 0 in the Arabic notation for numbers, nought, cipher. The Arabic name for the figure was sifr, which meant literally an empty thing. The old Latin writers on arithmetic translated or transliterated the Arabic word as zephyrum; this in Ital. became zefiro, contracted to zero, borrowed by F. zéro, whence it came late into English. The Spanish form cifra, more closely resembling the original Arabic, gave O. Fr. cifre, mod. ”