n. 考查;恶作剧;课堂测验
vt. 挖苦;张望;对…进行测验
quiz 测试,查问,盘问
可能来自拉丁语qui es,你是谁,来自qui,谁,词源同who,es,是,词源同is.原为过去拉丁语 语法考试时问考生的第一个问题。后用于指小测试,小考试。
A Quiz, in the common acceptation of the word, signifies one who thinks, speaks, or acts differently from the rest of the world in general. But, as manners and opinions are as various as mankind, it will be difficult to say who shall be termed a Quiz, and who shall not: each person indiscriminately applying the name of Quiz to every one who differs from himself .... ["The London Magazine," November, 1783]According to OED, the anecdote that credits this word to a bet by the Dublin theater-manager Daly or Daley that he could coin a word is regarded by authorities as "doubtful" and the first record of it appears to be in 1836 (in Smart's "Walker Remodelled"; the story is omitted in the edition of 1840).
The word Quiz is a sort of a kind of a word
That people apply to some being absurd;
One who seems, as t'were oddly your fancy to strike
In a sort of a fashion you somehow don't like
A mixture of odd, and of queer, and all that
Which one hates, just, you know, as some folks hate a cat;
A comical, whimsical, strange, droll -- that is,
You know what I mean; 'tis -- in short, -- 'tis a quiz!
[from "Etymology of Quiz," Charles Dibdin, 1842]