Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Used as a placeholder word or metasyntactic variable.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

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.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word xyzzy.

Examples

  • Yes | No | Report from xyzzy wrote 1 year 29 weeks ago

    Calculating Flinch Factor 2008

  • October 1, 2008 at 8:44 am try sayin ‘xyzzy’ to get out. friscokitteh says:

    Spoonin, - Lolcats 'n' Funny Pictures of Cats - I Can Has Cheezburger? 2008

  • Load up Macworld and run a search for any term, like xyzzy.

    Macworld 2010

  • Macworld and run a search for any term, like xyzzy.

    PC World 2010

  • I ... xyzzy: I got my copy of Myers's book yesterday as well, and ...

    One Free Korea 2010

  • I ... xyzzy: I got my copy of Myers's book yesterday as well, and ...

    One Free Korea 2010

  • In the pasted URL, replace your search word (xyzzy) with an asterisk (*).

    PC World 2010

  • I ... xyzzy: I got my copy of Myers's book yesterday as well, and ...

    One Free Korea 2010

  • Load up Macworld and run a search for any term, like xyzzy.

    Macworld Aayush Arya 2010

  • I ... xyzzy: I got my copy of Myers's book yesterday as well, and ...

    One Free Korea 2010

Comments

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  • I know this word from the infocom game Zork. c. 1980.

    January 8, 2013