xyzzy
Hello, you have come here looking for the meaning of the word xyzzy. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word xyzzy, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say xyzzy in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word xyzzy you have here. The definition of the word xyzzy will help you to be more precise and correct when speaking or writing your texts. Knowing the definition ofxyzzy, as well as those of other words, enriches your vocabulary and provides you with more and better linguistic resources.
English
Etymology
From the seminal text adventure game Adventure (c.1975), where it served as a "magic word"; possibly originated as a mnemonic for the subscripts of the cross product in mathematics.
Pronunciation
Noun
xyzzy (uncountable)
- Used as a placeholder word or metasyntactic variable.
- 2001, Simson Garfinkel, Gene Spafford, Web Security, Privacy and Commerce:
- Especially bad are "magic words" from computer games, such as xyzzy. These magic words look secret and unguessable, but in fact they are widely known.
- 2002, Mark Gaynor, Network Services Investment Guide:
- Suppose stock xyzzy is selling at $100.00 on January 1, 2002. The classic call option is to pay a fixed amount per share (say $10) for the option to buy...
- 2005, Ruslan Mitkov, The Oxford Handbook of Computational Linguistics:
- The path that relates xyzzy to XYZZY cycles many times through the single state of the transducer.
- 2006, Venkat Subramaniam, Andy Hunt, Practices of an Agile Developer:
- How you even form the sentence makes a difference; if you say, "We need technology xyzzy because...," then the battle for common sense is already lost.
- 2008, Randal L Schwartz, Tom Phoenix, Brian Foy, Learning Perl:
- Perl doesn't care if you call your loop labels things like XYZZY or PLUGH.