The expression “coffee break” was first attested in 1952 in glossy magazine advertisements by the Pan-American Coffee Bureau.
QUIZ
quiz
(noun) an examination consisting of a few short questions
quiz, test
(verb) examine someone’s knowledge of something; “The teacher tests us every week”; “We got quizzed on French irregular verbs”
Source: WordNet® 3.1
Etymology
Noun
quiz (plural quizzes)
(dated) An odd, puzzling or absurd person or thing.
A competition in the answering of questions.
(education) A school examination of less importance, or of greater brevity, than others given in the same course.
Verb
quiz (third-person singular simple present quizzes, present participle quizzing, simple past and past participle quizzed)
(transitive, archaic) To hoax; to chaff or mock with pretended seriousness of discourse; to make sport of, as by obscure questions.
(transitive, archaic) To peer at; to eye suspiciously or mockingly.
(transitive) To question closely, to interrogate.
(transitive) To instruct by means of a quiz.
(transitive, obsolete, rare) To play with a quiz.
Source: Wiktionary
Quiz, n. Etym: [It is said that Daly, the manager of a Dublin playhouse, laid a wager that a new word of no meaning should be the common talk and puzzle of the city in twenty-fours. In consequence of this the letters q u i z were chalked by him on all the walls of Dublin, with an effect that won the wager. Perhaps, however, originally a variant of whiz, and formerly the name of a popular game.]
1. A riddle or obscure question; an enigma; a ridiculous hoax.
2. One who quizzes others; as, he is a great quiz.
3. An odd or absurd fellow. Smart. Thackeray.
4. An exercise, or a course of exercises, conducted as a coaching or as an examination. [Cant, U.S.]
Quiz, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Quizzed; p. pr. & vb. n. Quizzing.]
1. To puzzle; to banter; to chaff or mock with pretended seriousness of discourse; to make sport of, as by obscure questions. He quizzed unmercifully all the men in the room. Thackeray.
2. To peer at; to eye suspiciously or mockingly.
3. To instruct in or by a quiz. See Quiz, n., 4. [U.S.] Quizzing glass, a small eyeglass.
Quiz, v. i.
Definition: To conduct a quiz. See Quiz, n., 4. [U.S.]
Source: Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary 1913 Edition
Recent Word Finds
Word of the Day
13 March 2025
ACCURATE
(adjective) conforming exactly or almost exactly to fact or to a standard or performing with total accuracy; “an accurate reproduction”; “the accounting was accurate”; “accurate measurements”; “an accurate scale”
Coffee Trivia
