quiz

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   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.

2. 2
   noun

   A competition in the answering of questions.

   We came second in the pub quiz.

3. 3
   noun

   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.

4. 4
   verb

   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—

5. 5
   verb

   To question (someone) closely, to interrogate.

   He quizzed the suspect for around half an hour.

6. 6
   noun

   an examination consisting of a few short questions

7. 7
   verb

   examine someone's knowledge of something

8. 8
   noun

   One who questions or interrogates; a prying person.

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 th…