a public test of knowledge, esp as a form of entertainment
a set of usu short quick questions
NAmer an informal test given by a teacher to a student or class
archaic an eccentric or quizzical person
archaic a practical joke or hoax
origin unknown. Sometimes said to have been coined by Richard Daly, an 18th-cent. Dublin theatre proprietor, who bet that he could introduce a nonsense word and that people would give a meaning to it. He had the word quiz written on walls all over the city, and it rapidly became part of the language. However, there is no evidence to support this story. The orig meaning was ‘an odd or eccentric person’, later ‘a prank or witticism’; as a verb ‘to make fun of somebody’ (surviving in quizzical). The current senses of quiz arose much later, and may represent a different word