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The first appearance of the word "quiz" is from 1782 and means an
odd person. This sense survives today in the word "quizzical". It was
also used in the term quizzing glass, a common accoutrement of English
Regency dandies. It later acquired a meaning of to make fun of, or to
mock. How it acquired its current meaning of a test is unknown, but
that sense did not appear until 1867 and then it was in the United States.
The OED2 has a cite from 1847 where the word appears: "She com back
and quiesed us," which could be a clue to its origin. Quiz as a test
could be a corruption of the Latin Qui es, meaning "Who are you?" American
Heritage says it may be from the English dialect verb quiset, meaning
to question. In any case it is probably from the same root as question
and inquisitive.
There is a well-known but untrue story of the word "quiz", which
says that in 1791 a Dublin theater owner named James Daly made a bet
that he could introduce a word into the language within twenty-four
hours. He then went out and hired a group of street urchins to write
the word "quiz", which was a nonsense word, on walls around the city
of Dublin. Within a day, the word was common currency and had acquired
a meaning (since no one knew what it meant, everyone thought it was
some sort of test) and Daly had some extra cash in his pocket. While
entertaining, there is absolutely no evidence to support it and the
term was already in use before the alleged bet in 1791. ***
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