quiz

English Online Dictionary. What means quiz‎? What does quiz mean?

English

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.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kwɪz/, [kʰw̥ɪz]
• Rhymes: -ɪz

Noun

quiz (plural quizzes)

1. (dated) An odd, puzzling or absurd person or thing.
2. (dated) One who questions or interrogates; a prying person.
3. A competition in the answering of questions.
4. (education) A school examination of less importance, or of greater brevity, than others given in the same course.

Derived terms

Descendants

Translations

Verb

quiz (third-person singular simple present quizzes, present participle quizzing, simple past and past participle quizzed)

1. (transitive, archaic) To hoax; to chaff or mock with pretended seriousness of discourse; to make sport of, as by obscure questions.
2. (transitive, archaic) To peer at; to eye suspiciously or mockingly.
3. (transitive) To question (someone) closely, to interrogate.
4. (transitive) To instruct (someone) by means of a quiz.
5. (transitive, obsolete, rare) To play with a quiz. (Can we add an example for this sense?)

Translations

References

Further reading

• Douglas Harper (2001–2025) “quiz”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.

Danish

Etymology

Borrowed from English quiz.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kvis/, [kʰvis]
• Homophone: quiz'

Noun

quiz c (singular definite quizzen, plural indefinite quizzer)

1. quiz (competition in the answering of questions)

Inflection

Related terms

• quizze ("to quiz")

Dutch

Alternative forms

• kwis

Etymology

Borrowed from English quiz

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kʋɪs/
• Rhymes: -ɪs

Noun

quiz m (plural quizzen, diminutive quizje n)

1. quiz

Derived terms

Related terms

French

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kwiz/

Noun

quiz m (uncountable)

1. quiz

Italian

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈkwit͡s/^*
• Rhymes: -its
• Hyphenation: quìz

Noun

quiz m (invariable)

1. quiz

Derived terms

• telequiz

Norman

Etymology

Borrowed from English quiz.

Noun

quiz m (plural quizs)

1. (Jersey) quiz

Polish

Alternative forms

• kwiz

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from English quiz.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈkwis/
• Rhymes: -is
• Syllabification: quiz

Noun

quiz m inan

1. quiz (competition in the answering of questions)

   Synonym: zgaduj-zgadula

Declension

Derived terms

Further reading

• quiz in Wielki słownik języka polskiego, Instytut Języka Polskiego PAN
• quiz in Polish dictionaries at PWN

Portuguese

Etymology 1

Unadapted borrowing from English quiz.

Pronunciation

Noun

quiz m (plural quizzes or quizes)

1. quiz (question-answering competition)

Etymology 2

Verb

quiz

1. Obsolete spelling of quis.

Spanish

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from English quiz.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): (Spain) /ˈkwiθ/ [ˈkwiθ]
• IPA^(key): (Latin America, Philippines) /ˈkwis/ [ˈkwis]
• Rhymes: -iθ
• Rhymes: -is

Noun

quiz m (plural quiz)

1. (television) quiz show

Usage notes

According to Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) prescriptions, unadapted foreign words should be written in italics in a text printed in roman type, and vice versa, and in quotation marks in a manuscript text or when italics are not available. In practice, this RAE prescription is not always followed.