This week’s theme
Z in the spotlight

This week’s words
zillionaire
spizzerinctum
zazzy
pizzazz
izzard


Wordsmith Games

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A.Word.A.Day

PRONUNCIATION:

(IZ-uhrd)

MEANING:

noun: The letter Z.

ETYMOLOGY:

An alteration of earlier ezod/ezed, probably from French et zede (and zed), said at the end of the alphabet. Earliest documented use: c. 1726.

NOTES:

We went looking for a word with exactly five Zs but couldn’t find one. We could stretch zzz into zzzzz, but we wanted to end the week awake. So here’s a word for the letter Z itself, izzard: two Zs in its spelling, and the letter Z in its meaning.

Izzard survives chiefly in expressions such as “from A to izzard” (from beginning to end) and “to not know A from izzard” (to be ignorant).

A similar alphabet recitation gave us ampersand, from “and per se and”: & by itself stood for the word “and”.

USAGE:

“He doesn’t know A from izzard when it comes to women.”
Dan Kennedy; Z; Edited by Meredith Broussard; The Encyclopedia of Exes; Crown; 2005.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: