Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (orig. US, also tiz-wizz, tizz, tizzy-wizzy) a panic, a ‘state’, a flap; delirium tremens.

1899		Boston Sun. Globe (MA) 24 Sept. 40/2: Getting yellow jaundice and flesh-swiping fevers [...] and epizooty, and the tizzy-wizzy, and a melancholy smile.
1903		Nebraska State Jrnl (Lincoln, NE) 14 June 9/5: The tizzy-wizzy wards where the purple bugs walk legs downwards.
1935		D. Hughes ‘Lang of the Fashion Sheet’ AS X:3 192/1: The tizzy in which a huge wedding kept society columnists for weeks .
1945		D. Vining A Gay Diary (1996) 12 May 475: I was late arriving at the Museum and expected Joe to be in one of his tizzies.
1959		A. Sinclair My Friend Judas (1963) 18: I threw the wire away against the wall, and banged up and down the room in a tizzy.
1960		C. MacInnes Mr Love and Justice (1964) 185: The public’s always calling us in a tizzy and then when we get their man for them refusing to cooperate in a prosecution.
1970		H.E. Bates A Little of What You Fancy (1985) 480: Was it a possible idea that the point of no return might get her in a tizz.
1971		R.D. Pharr S.R.O. (1998) 45: ‘She fumed and fretted herself into a tizzy’.
1981		S. Berkoff Decadence in Decadence and Other Plays (1985) 27: You can’t make up your mind / like Hamlet in a tizz.
1987		‘Victoria Parker’ Pay for Play Cheerleaders 🌐 Chris was in a dizzy tizzy.
1993		T. Jones Pugilist at Rest 120: I threw the whole place into a tizzy.
2000		Observer Rev. 9 Apr. 10: Singer Roisin Murphy is, well, all of a tizz.
2003		Guardian G2 30 May 6: I would rush off all in a tiz-wizz.
2006		D. Mitchell Black Swan Green 73: He ended up storming off in a tizzy.
2009		(con. 1960s) J. Ellroy Blood’s a Rover 16: ‘I do not want Mr Hoover going into a tizzy about this.’ ‘It’s chilled’.
2013		T. Robinson Hard Bounce [ebook] But sixty-five inches and a hundred pounds plus change of Kelly Reese had him in a tizzy.
2022		J. Hannaham Didn’t Nobody Give a Shit 115: The whole sequence of events put her in a tizzy. She [...] tried to get her shit together.
2024		J. Meades Empty Wigs (t/s) 238: I had been to see Mama in the clinic. She was in more of a tizz than ever.

2. (US) a party, a get-together.

1964

R.P. Warren Flood 45: You’ll have to miss your weekly tizzy with Kiwanis.