Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. an eccentric person, thus an odd-looking thing; orig. university sl. for a hard-worker who eschews undergraduate amusements.

1785		M. Lonsdale Spanish Rivals I ii: Ay, he’s a queer Quis.
c.1786		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue ms. additions n.p.: Hoaxing a Quiz. Joaking an Odd fellow. University Wit.
1794		Sporting Mag. Dec. V 157/2: Now every young man who wishes to attain that for which he was sent to the university, namely improvement, is immediately denominated a Quiz, and is subject to, the petty insults of every buck (a species of the human kind so called in Cambridge) he meets with. To avoid the stigma of being a Quiz, young men who have but moderate allowances plunge into expences, which make them for many years after miserable. To peruse any book of improvement is called Quizzical; in short, not to be extremely dissipated and extravagant, is to be a Quiz.
1803		‘A Pembrochian’ Gradus ad Cantabrigiam 108: quiz [...] By a Quiz is commonly understood, in the words of Ben Jonson, ‘one who affects the violence of Singularity in all he does’ [...] a man sometimes obtains the odious appellation of a Quiz merely from his stile of dressing; which is, ex pede, different from orthodox or established fashion.
1809		Yankey in London 102: Every man of common sense was a quiz, and every blockhead quizzical.
1818		‘Thomas Brown’ Fudge Family in Paris in Moore Poetical Works VII Letter III 113: We lounge up the Boulevards, where — oh, Dick, the phyzzes, / The turn-outs we meet — what a nation of quizzes.
1827		T. Morton A School For Grown Children IV i: Last night I saw that old quiz.
1838		T. Hood Comic Annual 131: The Cook’s a hasher nothing more. The Children noisy grubs. A Wife’s a quiz and home’s a bore.
1842		S. Lover Handy Andy 76: If that divil, Tom Durfy, sees me, he’ll tell it all over the country, he’s such a quiz.
1849		Thackeray Pendennis I 339: ‘I’m afraid you’re a sad quiz,’ said Mrs. Bungay. ‘Quiz! Never made a joke in my--hullo! who’s here?’.
1855		T. Haliburton Nature and Human Nature I 124: What nonsense you do talk, what a quiz you be.
1864, 1867, 1870		Hotten Sl. Dict.
1873		Sl. Dict. 265: Quiz a prying person, an odd fellow. Originally Oxford slang, but now general, and lately admitted into some dictionaries.
1873		Exeter Flying Post 25 June 6/1: Why, that odious old quiz, Captain Moonraker.
1893		Aberdeen Eve. Exp. 20 Jan. 2/6: Leave my Chancellor Pepys, so grave and so greasy / [...] / Oh! leave me Spring Rice, so pert, yet so looney — / And Pallet, whom Lady — christened her Spooney. / Yes, leave me my Quizzes, for out of all question / A laugh, when one dines, is a help to digestion.
1895		C. Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 64: Quiz, an odd fellow.
1929		D.H. Lawrence ‘True Democracy’ in Pansies in Complete Poems 434: Yes, I’m a gent, an’ Liz / ’ere, she’s a lidy, aren’t yer, old quizz?

2. a monocle; spectacles [abbr. SE quizzing-glass].

1820		‘The Time of Day’ London Songster 21: My hat cock’d awry, my Brutus to display, / Clappd quiz glass to my eye.
1841		Worcs. Chron. 11 Aug. 3/1: The two papers were produced. They were different dialects, or descriptions of slang language [...] In one of them the gold eye-glasses were called ‘norah owlers,’ the other ‘ridge quiz.’ ‘Ridge’ was stated to mean gold, and ‘norah’ also signified gold .

3. (US Und.) a question.

1926		Wood & Goddard Dict. Amer. Sl. 42: quiz. A questioning, questionnaire.
1940		D. Maurer Big Con 147: Any mark will ask you hundreds of quizzes.