or quoz, subs. (colloquial).—1. A puzzle; a jest; a hoax: also QUIZZIFICATION; (2) a jesting or perplexing critic; also QUIZZER; and (3) any odd-looking person or thing. As verb. = to banter; to puzzle; to confound. Hence QUIZZICAL (or QUIZZICALLY) = jocose or humorous; TO QUIZZIFY = to make ridiculous.—GROSE (1785); BEE (1823).
1749. SMOLLETT, Gil Blas [ROUTLEDGE], 147. Women of light character … play the comedy of love in many masks,… as they fall in with the QUIZ, the coxcomb, or the bully.
1797. BURNEY, Diary, vi. 138. I cannot suffer you to make such a QUIZ of yourself. Ibid., vi. 187. These and his spout of satire are mere QUIZZINESS. Ibid. (1796), Camilla, VII. ix. What does the old QUOZ mean?
1797. COLMAN, The Heir at Law, iv. 3. Dick. What a damn’d gig you look like. Pangloss. A gig! Umph; that’s an Eton phrase—the Westminsters call it QUIZ.
1803. C. K. SHARPE [Correspondence (1888), i. 17]. Billy Bamboozle, a QUIZZER and wit.
1803. EDGEWORTH, Belinda, ix. You have taken a fancy to the old QUIZICAL fellow. Ibid., xi. After all, my dear, the whole may be a QUIZZIFICATION of Sir Philip’s.
1815. SCOTT, Guy Mannering, iii. What were then called bites and bams, since denominated hoaxes and QUIZZES.
1818. AUSTEN, Northanger Abbey, 33. Where did you get that QUIZ of a hat? it makes you look like an old witch.
1830. POOLE, Turning the Tables, sc. i. I’ll QUIZ his heart out.
1840. BULWER-LYTTON, Paul Clifford, vi. Stab my vitals, but you are a comical QUIZ.
1855. THACKERAY, The Newcomes, lix. The landlord of the “King’s Arms” looked knowing and QUIZZICAL. Ibid., lxii. I don’t think it’s kind of you to QUIZ my boy for doing his duty to his Queen and to his father too, sir.
1856. C. BRONTË, The Professor, iii. He was not odd—no QUIZ—yet he resembled no one else I had ever seen before.
1837. CARLYLE, The Diamond Necklace, xvi. How many fugitive leaves, QUIZZICAL, imaginative, or at least mendacious, were flying about in Newspapers.
1902. W. E. HENLEY, Introduction to The Collected Works of William Hazlitt, I. xxi.]. And dead is Burke, and Fox is dead, and Byron, most QUIZZICAL of lords!
2. (American students’).—A weekly oral examination: also spec. notes made and passed on to another: hence QUIZ-class, SURGERY-QUIZ, LEGAL-QUIZ, &c.; QUIZ-MASTER = a tutor or COACH (q.v.). Also as verb. = (1) to attend, and (2) to conduct such a class.
3. (general).—A monocular eyeglass: also QUIZZING-GLASS.
1843. THACKERAY, The Irish Sketch-Book, xxiv. The dandy not uncommonly finishes off with a horn QUIZZING-GLASS.
Verb. (common).—1. See subs.
