Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a spastic.

1967		The Elastik Band ‘Spazz’ 🎵 I said, get offa the floor, get offa the floor, boy, people gonna think, yes they’re gonna think, people gonna think you’re a spazz.
2000		Guardian G2 6 Jan. 5: Surely Sheringham cannot be doing what I believe is called [...] a ’spaz’ impression.

2. (student/school) one who is useless, clumsy, incompetent and is thus socially unacceptable; thus hyperspazz, spaz attack, a state of excitement.

1956		J. Fineman journal cited 25/06/05 ADS-L 🌐 SPAZ, n. [Regional] (shortened from spastic) 1. Obsolete. A person lacking in the common social skills & virtues. See TWITCH.
1968		Current Sl. II:3 10: Spass, n. An uncoordinated person (from spastic). [Ibid.] II:4 9: Spaz attack, n. An upset, excited condition.
1974		Aus. Women’s Wkly 3 Apr. 58/3: ‘Like, my art teacher is a spaz.’ ‘A spaz?’ ‘Hopeless, a wipe-out’.
1975		G. Underwood ‘Razorback Sl.’ in AS L:1/2 67: spas n 1: Uncoordinated, clumsy person 2: Person regarded as dull, foolish, or stupid.
1977		J. Sayles Union Dues (1978) 103: The old man has been a total spaz since the year one, the coordination of a five-year-old.
1986		S. King It (1987) 147: He was a spasmoid, but I loved him.
1986		T. Winton That Eye, The Sky 80: He doesn’t look like a spaz.
1994		Eble Campus Sl. Apr. 5: Bill had a hyperspazz when he found out that his car had been totaled.
1997		Fraser & Meadows TwentyFourSeven [film script] (1998) 84: Oh bollocks. His room’s at the back, you spazz.
1997		R. Twigger Angry White Pyjamas 265: Paul thinks you’re a spaz.
1999		J. Poller Reach 35: For the next three years all I seemed to hear were jubilant cries of ‘spas’ or ‘spasmo’.
2001		OnLine Dict. of Playground Sl. 🌐 spack, spaz, spazmo, spacker, spanner, spadge n. [...] An excessively stupid or unpleasant person.
2003		M. Haddon Curious Incident of the Dog 56: People used to call [...] the children at school spaz and crip and mong.
2006		D. Mitchell Black Swan Green 292: Right spazzers we must have looked.
2011		S. Kelman Pigeon English 33: We weren’t talking to you, spaz.
2012		(con. 1980s) I. Welsh Skagboys 82: Ah’d rather be stuck wi the lassies than these fuckin spazwits.
2018		I. Welsh Dead Man’s Trousers 74: Had it [i.e. a gun] in his top right-hand drawer, the fuckin spazwit!
2015		L. Berney Long & Faraway Gone [ebook] [She] laughed like a spaz.
2022		Twitter 2 Aug. 🌐 In the U.S., ‘spaz’ is popular slang meaning ‘go crazy,’—but the word is an ableist insult in the U.K. and other countries.

3. (US campus) a general pej.; no physical incompetence is implied.

1965		R. Baker in N.Y. Times 11 Apr. E14/6: Your teen-age daughter asks what you think of her ‘shades,’ which you are canny enough to know are her sunglasses, and you say, ‘Cool,’ and she says, ‘Oh, Dad, what a spaz!’.
1965		P. Kael I Lost it at Movies III 259: The term that American teen-agers now use as the opposite of ‘tough’ is ‘spaz’. A spaz is a person who is courteous to teachers, plans for a career [...] and believes in official values. A spaz is something like what adults still call a square.
1984		J. Ellroy Because the Night 40: 1956. Scarsdale, New York. Johnny Havilland, age eleven, known as ‘Spaz,’ ‘Wimpdick,’ and ‘Shitstick.’.
2001		Eble Campus Sl. Fall 3: CRACK-WHORE – person unworthy of respect or esteem [...] Also SPAZ.
2021		C. Moran in Times Mag. 6 Nov. 9/1: Kids in the playground don’t really shout ‘Gaylord!’ any more. Or ‘Spaz’, or ‘Mong’, or ‘Lezza’, or ‘Flid’.