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quiz

noun
/kwɪz/

Etymology

Attested since the 1780s, of unknown origin. * The Century Dictionary suggests it was originally applied to a popular toy, from a dialectal variant of whiz. * The Random House Dictionary suggests the original sense was "odd person" (circa 1780). * Others suggest the meaning "hoax" was original (1796), shifting to the meaning "interrogate" (1847) under the influence of question and inquisitive. * Some say without evidence it was invented by a late-18th-century Dublin theatre proprietor who bet he could add a new nonsense word to the English language; he had the word painted on walls all over the city, and the morning after, everyone was talking about it (The Pre-Victorian Drama in Dublin). * Others suggest it was originally quies (1847), Latin qui es? (who are you?), traditionally the first question in oral Latin exams. They suggest that it was first used as a noun from 1867, and the spelling quiz first recorded in 1886, but this is demonstrably incorrect. * A further derivation, assuming that the original sense is "good, ingenuous, harmless man, overly conventional, pedantic, rule-bound man, square; nerd; oddball, eccentric", is based on a column from 1785 which claims that the origin is a jocular translation of the Horace quotation vir bonus est quis as "the good man is a quiz" at Cambridge.

  1. derived from exams
  2. derived from qui es?
  3. derived from language; he had the word painted on walls all over the city

Definitions

  1. An odd, puzzling or absurd person or thing.

    • I've always heard he was a quiz, says another, or a quoz, or some such word ; but I did not know he was such a book-worm.
    • I tell you I am going to the music shop. I trust to your honour. Lord Rawson, I know, will call me a fool for trusting to the honour of a quiz.
    • Where did you get that quiz of a hat? It makes you look like an old witch.

  2. One who questions or interrogates

    One who questions or interrogates; a prying person.

  3. A competition in the answering of questions.

    • We came second in the pub quiz.
    • Once all six friends are clear that the topic of Janet's story is a pub quiz, we launch into talk around this topic, combining factual information about quizzes we have participated in with fantasies about becoming a team ourselves.
  4. ›+ 6 more definitions

    1. A school examination of less importance, or of greater brevity, than others given in the…

      A school examination of less importance, or of greater brevity, than others given in the same course.

      • For many it is hard to envision a scenario where a student completes an online quiz (or test) without using their smartphone, tablet, or other device to look up the answers, or ‘share’ those answers with other students.

    2. To hoax

      To hoax; to chaff or mock with pretended seriousness of discourse; to make sport of, as by obscure questions.

      • he quizzed unmercifully all the men in the room—

    3. To peer at

      To peer at; to eye suspiciously or mockingly.

    4. To question (someone) closely, to interrogate.

      • He quizzed the suspect for around half an hour.
      • This week members return to the chamber to quiz the government on the Zimbabwe election, teacher shortages, backlog of asylum applications and improving the system for dementia diagnosis.

    5. To instruct (someone) by means of a quiz.

    6. To play with a quiz.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

A definitional loop anchored at quiz. Each word in the ring is defined by the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself. Scroll to it and watch.

01quiz02prying03pry04inquire05inquiry06asking07posing08pose

A definitional loop anchored at quiz. Each word in the ring appears in the definition of the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself.

8 hops · closes at quiz

curated · pre-corpus. live cycle detection across the full graph is the next major milestone.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA