-zza
suffixEtymology
Originally Australian. From a mutation (specifically a zetacism) of the underlying rhotic consonant /ɹ/ to /z/ (see -z), combined with -a, a non-rhotic pronunciation spelling of -er (the Oxford colloquial clipping suffix). The template was popularized in print during the 1960s and 1970s by the Australian comedian Barry Humphries, whose satirical comic strip The Adventures of Barry McKenzie (first published in 1964 in the British magazine Private Eye) yielded the eponymous archetype Bazza, cementing the suffix in the Commonwealth lexicon.
Definitions
Forms nicknames, especially of personal names.
- Barry + -zza → Bazza
- Sharon + -zza → Shazza
- Charlotte + -zza → Chazza
The neighborhood
Vish — recursive loop
No curated loop yet for -zza. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.
sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA