doozy
/ˈduːzi/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.48 in modern English
18
Scrabble Score
5
Letters
2
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
Something that is extraordinary: often troublesome, difficult or problematic, but sometimes extraordinary in a positive sense.
American usage; Colloquial
Example Sentences
- "Most of the test was easy, but the last question was a doozy."
- ""Boy!" said Hazel, "that was a doozy, wasn't it?" It was such a doozy that George was white and trembling, and tears stood on the rims of his red eyes."
- "Like the em unit, the rem unit is based on declared font size. The difference — and it’s a doozy — is that whereas em is calculated using the font size of the element to which it’s applied, rem is always calculated using the root element."
- "As soon as the races were billed he began to evolve Schemes — one Doozy scheme followed the other..."
- "The hydra wasn't the doozy? How could it not be the doozy? What could be doozier than that?"
- "Who was that doozy fellow I saw you with?"
Etymology
Unknown. First appearance 1903. Perhaps from daisy (“the flower”) (Rudyard Kipling used daisy in this sense) or the name of Italian actress Eleonora Duse. The automobile manufacturer Duesenberg is often erroneously cited as the origin, but the word existed more than a decade earlier. Alternatively, possibly from Polish duży, but this is chronologically unlikely and not attested in period sources.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: duży
Usage
- American usage
- Colloquial
- Dated
- Slang