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#195245 12/23/2010 5:52 PM
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I cannot find a definition for "viz." which I have seen on many occasions through the years, seeming to mean "for example" or "such as" or something of that kind.

I'd like to get a definition if possible. Thank you all.

akerley #195246 12/23/2010 5:57 PM
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WELCOME, AKERLEY


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akerley #195247 12/23/2010 8:45 PM
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viz : namely (Used to introduce examples, lists, or items.)
Function: abbreviation
Etymology: Latin videlicet

NB: there are 42 dictionaries with English definitions that include the word viz listed at OneLook.com (YCLIU!)

Last edited by tsuwm; 12/23/2010 8:49 PM.
tsuwm #195249 12/23/2010 10:29 PM
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You might even find out how the delicet part became [i[z[/i].

Faldage #195258 12/24/2010 7:18 AM
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Originally Posted By: Faldage
You might even find out how the delicet part became [i[z[/i].


I see.

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ou might even find out how the delicet part became z.

Why doesn't this set off the peevometry alarums like ATM machine? A 'proper' abbreviation for videlicet should obviously be vid., not viz. if only normative grammarians were consistent.


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I have seen vid. used occaisionally...what always confused me was the use of viz a viz...


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what always confused me was the use of viz a viz...

I once baited a French co-worker by asking him what he thought of the way Americans pronounced coup de grace as coup de gras.


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Originally Posted By: bexter
I have seen vid. used occaisionally...what always confused me was the use of viz a viz...


Where you see dat?

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Originally Posted By: bexter
I have seen vid. used occaisionally...what always confused me was the use of viz a viz...


Ha! Here is an excerpt from an obscure, unpublished work, with corrected spelling of Defoe, who was a writer but probably not an actor:

Shocking as this may be, I will admit that I once made a faulty assumption from not looking something up. In reading Defoe, I had always taken his viz. to mean vis-à-vis. One day while looking something else up somewhere in the V’s, on a whim I looked for viz. To my surprise, Defoe’s term turned out to be an abbreviation for videlicet, which means ‘that is to say’ or ‘namely’, [and thus very much like id est]. My interpretation of vis-à-vis was reasonably useful by one of its three definitions, but not what Defoe wrote. So, even a literary snob can stumble on a forehead-smacking discovery.


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The answer to a consonant-heavy query is that it leaps the fence between empty-headed and curiously odd combined with an archaic nature. Perhaps "vid." was already taken in 1722.


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