Word.ws English Dictionary

xyzzy

/ˈzɪzi/

xyzzy noun: used as a placeholder word or metasyntactic variable.

Noun

xyzzy (uncountable)

  1. Used as a placeholder word or metasyntactic variable.
    • 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.2001, Simson Garfinkel, Gene Spafford, Web Security, Privacy and Commerce
    • 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...2002, Mark Gaynor, Network Services Investment Guide

Examples of xyzzy in a sentence

  • The path that relates xyzzy to XYZZY cycles many times through the single state of the transducer.2005, Ruslan Mitkov, The Oxford Handbook of Computational Linguistics:
  • 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.2006, Venkat Subramaniam, Andy Hunt, Practices of an Agile Developer:
  • Perl doesn't care if you call your loop labels things like XYZZY or PLUGH.2008, Randal L Schwartz, Tom Phoenix, Brian Foy, Learning Perl:

Origin of xyzzy

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.

Words that rhyme with xyzzy

5 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about xyzzy

What does xyzzy mean?
Xyzzy means used as a placeholder word or metasyntactic variable.
How do you use xyzzy in a sentence?
The path that relates xyzzy to XYZZY cycles many times through the single state of the transducer.
What part of speech is xyzzy?
Xyzzy is a noun.
How do you pronounce xyzzy?
Xyzzy is pronounced /ˈzɪzi/.

Words near xyzzy in the dictionary

  1. xystum
  2. xystus
  3. XYY syndrome
  4. XYZ
  5. XYZs
  6. xyzzy
  7. Xzavier
  8. Xârâcùù
  9. Xöömij
  10. xʷməθkʷəy̓əm
  11. x̄á'islak̓ala

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: xyzzy (page history and authors). 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-uk-xyzzy.ogg.

Cite this entry: “xyzzy.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/xyzzy. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.