quiz

CEFRA2

/kwɪz/

noun · verb

Türkçe translations

Translating…

In plain English

  1. 01

    noun

    A short test or game with questions.

  2. 02

    verb

    To ask someone questions, especially as a test.

Examples

  • I can make nothing of this quiz.

  • The boy took great pains to solve the quiz.

At a glance

Sits at A2 on the CEFR scale

Senses
5
Parts of speech
2
Citations
5

Also pronounced

  • [kʰw̥ɪz]

Deep Dive

noun

Extra meanings

  1. A competition in the answering of questions.

  2. One who questions or interrogates; a prying person.

  3. An odd, puzzling or absurd person or thing.

More examples

In context

  • The format of the new quiz show has proved popular.

  • He quizzed the suspect for around half an hour.

  • We came second in the pub quiz.

Quick test

Two questions on this entry. Nothing is scored.

Question 1 · Quick check

The sudden pop blank on the very difficult chapter made everyone extremely nervous.

Practise this properly in the app, where the word comes back before you forget it.

Nearby

Origin

noun

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). *...