Plural of “quiz”

The plural of quiz is quizzes.

Why

"Quiz" is unusual among English words for having a genuinely disputed and possibly invented origin — one popular but unverified 19th-century story claims a Dublin theater manager coined it overnight in 1780 to win a bet that he could introduce a nonsense word into common use within a day, though most etymologists now consider this story an entertaining legend rather than documented fact, and the word's real first appearances in print are somewhat later and less colorful.

Whatever its true origin, "quiz" is a short, single-syllable word ending in a single consonant preceded by a single vowel (the "CVC" pattern), and English spelling convention doubles that final consonant before adding a suffix in exactly this situation — the same rule that turns "run" into "running" — combined with the requirement that sibilant -z endings take -es rather than bare -s, giving the doubled, extended plural "quizzes."

Usage note

Whether the context is a short classroom test or a casual online personality quiz shared on social media, the plural spelling stays the same fully regular form, never wavering from its original schoolroom pattern even as the word's everyday use has spread far beyond the classroom.

The verb "to quiz" someone (to question them informally) follows the identical doubling-plus-es pattern in its third-person singular form ("she quizzes her students every Friday"), so the spelling rule governing the noun plural and the verb conjugation is the same rule, not two separate coincidences. The word's meaning has also drifted to describe informal questioning outside any classroom context entirely, as in "the police quizzed him for hours," a usage that keeps the same doubling-plus-es spelling rule even though it has nothing to do with tests or education anymore.

Common real mistakes

Writers sometimes forget the consonant doubling and write "quizes," which is incorrect; because "quiz" is a short CVC word, both the doubling and the -es ending are required together, not one without the other.

The wider pattern

"Quiz" pluralizes on two combined rules at once — consonant doubling for short CVC words, and -es for sibilant endings — making it a slightly more complex case than "fox" or "wish," which only need the sibilant -es rule alone, without any doubling. Educational technology has expanded what counts as a "quiz" considerably, from simple paper tests to adaptive digital quizzes that adjust difficulty in real time based on a student's answers, and this modern instructional variety still uses the identical, unchanged spelling rule established for the word centuries ago.

Examples

• The teacher gave three pop quizzes in a single week.
• She aced both quizzes despite barely studying beforehand.
• Online personality quizzes flooded her social media feed that spring.
• The app generates new quizzes based on topics you struggle with.
• Students compared notes after finishing the two surprise quizzes.
• The trivia night featured quizzes on five completely unrelated subjects.
• He designed a series of quizzes to test the new hires' product knowledge.
• Weekly quizzes counted for a small percentage of the final grade.
• The magazine ran quizzes matching readers to fictional characters.
• Both quizzes covered material from the same three chapters.
• Detectives conducted separate quizzes with each witness that night.
• The show's quizzes get progressively harder as contestants advance.
• Teachers use short quizzes to check understanding before moving on.
• The app tracks how many quizzes a student has completed this month.
• The learning platform generates personalized quizzes based on past performance.
• Both weekly quizzes counted toward the final course grade.
• The game show's quizzes covered everything from history to pop culture.
• She created practice quizzes to help her classmates prepare for finals.
• The trivia app updates its quizzes with new questions every week.
• Both pop quizzes covered material from the previous unit only.