From Arabic 'sifr' (empty), translating Sanskrit 'shunya' (void) — carrying Indian nothingness into Europe.
The numerical value of nothing; the integer between negative one and positive one, represented by the symbol 0.
From Italian 'zero,' a contraction of Medieval Latin 'zephirum,' itself a transliteration of Arabic 'ṣifr' (صفر), meaning 'empty' or 'nothing.' The Arabic term was a translation of Sanskrit 'śūnya' (void, empty), reflecting the Indian mathematical concept of a placeholder for nothingness. The word entered European languages through Latin translations of al-Khwārizmī's ninth-century mathematical treatises, which transmitted the Hindu-Arabic numeral system to the West
Zero and cipher are doublets — both descend from the same Arabic word 'ṣifr,' but entered English via different routes: 'zero' through Italian contraction, 'cipher' through Old French, each acquiring distinct meanings from a single concept of emptiness.