# quiz

> English word · Noun · IPA /kwɪz/ · frequency rank #9,385

## Definitions
1. An odd, puzzling or absurd person or thing.
2. One who questions or interrogates; a prying person.
3. A competition in the answering of questions.
4. A school examination of less importance, or of greater brevity, than others given in the same course.

## Etymology
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 origin is a jocular translation of the Horace quotation vir bonus est quis as "the good man is a quiz" at Cambridge.

## Easily confused with
- **quo** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/quiz-vs-quo)
- **qi** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/qi-vs-quiz)
- **qu** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/qu-vs-quiz)
- **que** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/que-vs-quiz)
- **qin** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/qin-vs-quiz)
- **qua** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/qua-vs-quiz)
- **Qiu** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/qiu-vs-quiz)
- **quit** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/quit-vs-quiz)
- **quad** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/quad-vs-quiz)
- **quid** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/quid-vs-quiz)
- **quay** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/quay-vs-quiz)
- **quip** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/quip-vs-quiz)
- **qual** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/qual-vs-quiz)
- **quite** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/quite-vs-quiz)
- **quick** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/quick-vs-quiz)
- **quiet** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/quiet-vs-quiz)
- **Quinn** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/quinn-vs-quiz)
- **quits** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/quits-vs-quiz)
- **quilt** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/quilt-vs-quiz)
- **quail** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/quail-vs-quiz)

## Common misspellings (5)
`qiuz`, `qquiz`, `quizz`, `quzi`, `uqiz`

## Source
Compiled from Wiktionary via kaikki.org (CC BY-SA). Data vintage: 2026-05-06.
Canonical page: https://plainspell.com/en/word/quiz