quiz
/kwɪz/
quiz noun: an odd, puzzling or absurd person or thing.
Noun
quiz (plural quizzes)
- 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.1796, Fanny Burney, Camilla: or, A picture of youth, by the author of Evelina, page 99
- 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.1833, Maria Edgeworth, Moral Tales, volume 1, page 204
- One who questions or interrogates; a prying person.
- 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.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
- 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.2015 May 18, Matt Farrell, Shannon Maheu, “Why open-book tests deserve a place in your courses”, in Faculty Focus
Verb
quiz (third-person singular simple present quizzes, present participle quizzing, simple past and past participle quizzed)
- 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—1850, William Makepeace Thackeray, The History of Pendennis
- '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 […]1863, Sheridan Le Fanu, The House by the Churchyard
- To peer at; to eye suspiciously or mockingly.
- 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.2023 August 31, “What's on in the Lords 4-7 September”, in UK Parliament
- To instruct (someone) by means of a quiz.
- To play with a quiz.
quiz meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Bengali
quiz in Hindi
- competition in the answering of questions
- क्विज़ kviz, प्रश्नोत्तरी praśnottarī
quiz in Tamil
- புதிர்
quiz in Urdu
- مکر, شرارت, زبانی امتحان
quiz in Bengali
- ব্যঙ্গ, উপহাস, পরিহাস, বিদ্রূপ, ঠাট্টা, বিদ্রূপকারী
More languagesFewer languages
- quiz in Telugu
- క్విజ్, క్విస్
- quiz in Malayalam
- ചോദ്യാവലി, പ്രശ്നോത്തരി, വിജ്ഞാനപരീക്ഷ
- quiz in Kannada
- ಒರೆತ, ಕೇಳ್ವಿಕಂತೆ, ಕೇಳ್ವಿಯಾಟ, ಕೇಳುವಾಟ
- quiz in Punjabi
- ਕੁਇਜ਼, ਕਵਿਜ਼, ਕੁਇਜ਼ ਕਰਨ ਲਈ
- quiz in Gujarati
- ક્વિઝ
- quiz in Odia
- କୁଇଜ୍, କୁଇଜ, କୁଇଜ୍ କରିବା ପାଇଁ
- quiz in Nepali
- क्विज, क्विस
- quiz in Tagalog
- pagsusulit
- quiz in Arabic
- اِخْتِبَار iḵtibār
- quiz in Malay
- duga akal, kuiz
- quiz in Indonesian
- kuis
- quiz in Persian
- کوئیز ku'iz
- quiz in Vietnamese
- đố vui
- quiz in Myanmar
- ဉာဏ်စမ်း nyancam:
Examples of quiz in a sentence
- “I’m afraid you’re a sad quiz,” said Mrs.1850, William Makepeace Thackeray, The History of Pendennis:
- Rail Minister Lord Hendy was quizzed by the same MPs at an earlier hearing.2026 March 18, Peter Plisner, “Will devolution deliver real local control?”, in RAIL, number 1057, page 47:
Forms of quiz
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | quizzes |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | quizzes |
| present participle | quizzing |
| past participle | quizzed |
| past | quizzed |
Origin of quiz
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...
Words formed from quiz
Phrases with quiz
Words that rhyme with quiz
Questions about quiz
- What does quiz mean?
- Quiz means an odd, puzzling or absurd person or thing.
- What is quiz in Hindi?
- Quiz in Hindi is क्विज़ (kviz), प्रश्नोत्तरी (praśnottarī). See Quiz meaning in Hindi.
- How do you use quiz in a sentence?
- “I’m afraid you’re a sad quiz,” said Mrs.
- What part of speech is quiz?
- Quiz can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce quiz?
- Quiz is pronounced /kwɪz/.
- What is the plural of quiz?
- The plural of quiz is quizzes.
Words near quiz in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: quiz (page history and authors); quiz (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); quiz (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); quiz (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); quiz (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); quiz (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); quiz (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); quiz (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); quiz (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); quiz (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); quiz (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-quiz.ogg.
Cite this entry: “quiz.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/quiz. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.