TheCentury Dictionary suggests it was originally applied to a popular toy, from a dialectal variant ofwhiz.
TheRandom 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 ofquestion andinquisitive.
Some say without evidence it was invented by a late-18th-century Dublin theatre proprietor whobet he could add a new nonsenseword 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 originallyquies (1847), Latinqui es? (who are you?), traditionally the first question inoral Latinexams. They suggest that it was first used as a noun from 1867, and the spellingquiz 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 quotationvir 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, page72:
Once all six friends are clear that the topic of Janet's story is a pubquiz, we launch into talk around this topic, combining factual information aboutquizzes we have participated in with fantasies about becoming a team ourselves.
(education) A schoolexamination 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”, inFaculty Focus[3]:
For many it is hard to envision a scenario where a student completes an onlinequiz (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 toquiz Puddock about his cookery[…]
2023 August 31, “What's on in the Lords 4-7 September”, inUK Parliament[5]:
This week members return to the chamber toquiz the government onthe Zimbabwe election, teacher shortages, backlog of asylum applications and improving the system for dementia diagnosis.
According toRoyal 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.
