Hello, you have come here looking for the meaning of the word quiz. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word quiz, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say quiz in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word quiz you have here. The definition of the word quiz will help you to be more precise and correct when speaking or writing your texts. Knowing the definition ofquiz, as well as those of other words, enriches your vocabulary and provides you with more and better linguistic resources.
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",[1] 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.[2]
1997, Jennifer Coates, “The construction of a collaborative floor in women’s friendly talk”, in Talmy Givón, editor, Conversation: Cognitive, Communicative and Social Perspectives, page 72:
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.
(education) A school examination of less importance, or of greater brevity, than others given in the same course.
2015 May 18, Matt Farrell, Shannon Maheu, “Why open-book tests deserve a place in your courses”, in Faculty Focus:
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.
'Now, Puddock, back him up—encourage your man,' said Devereux, who took a perverse pleasure in joking; 'tell him to flay the lump, splat him, divide him, and cut him in two pieces—' It was a custom of the corps to quiz Puddock about his cookery […]
2023 August 31, “What's on in the Lords 4-7 September”, in UK Parliament:
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.
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.