xyzzy

English

Etymology

From the seminal text adventure game Adventure (c.1975), where it served as a "magic word"; possibly originated as a mnemonic for the subscripts of the cross product in mathematics.

Pronunciation

• enPR: zĭz'i, IPA^(key): /ˈzɪzi/
• Rhymes: -ɪzi

• Audio (UK)

  (file)

Noun

xyzzy (uncountable)

1. Used as a placeholder word or metasyntactic variable.
   • 2001, Simson Garfinkel, Gene Spafford, Web Security, Privacy and Commerce:

     Especially bad are "magic words" from computer games, such as xyzzy. These magic words look secret and unguessable, but in fact they are widely known.

   • 2002, Mark Gaynor, Network Services Investment Guide:

     Suppose stock xyzzy is selling at $100.00 on January 1, 2002. The classic call option is to pay a fixed amount per share (say $10) for the option to buy...

   • 2005, Ruslan Mitkov, The Oxford Handbook of Computational Linguistics:

     The path that relates xyzzy to XYZZY cycles many times through the single state of the transducer.

   • 2006, Venkat Subramaniam, Andy Hunt, Practices of an Agile Developer:

     How you even form the sentence makes a difference; if you say, "We need technology xyzzy because...," then the battle for common sense is already lost.

   • 2008, Randal L Schwartz, Tom Phoenix, Brian Foy, Learning Perl:

     Perl doesn't care if you call your loop labels things like XYZZY or PLUGH.