Word of the Day

: October 18, 2013

doozy

noun DOO-zee

What It Means

: an extraordinary one of its kind

doozy in Context

"It should be a doozy of a year, with an aggressive ad campaign starting and work underway to take the company public," said the CEO.

"The planet is a doozy, with maniacal dogs and giant scorpions, but Riddick has a keen sense of survival, so he makes a nice little life for himself and his new pet, a killer puppy." - From a movie review by Stephanie Merry in the Washington Post, September 13, 2013

Did You Know?

While it's often maintained that the word "doozy" derives from the "Duesenberg" in the name of the famed Duesenberg Motor Company, this is impossible on chronological grounds. "Doozy" was first recorded (in the form "dozy") in eastern Ohio in 1916, four years before the Duesenberg Motor Company began to manufacture passenger cars; the related adjective "doozy," meaning "stylish" or "splendid," is attested considerably earlier, in 1903. So where did "doozy" come from? Etymologists believe that it's an altered form of the word "daisy," which was used especially in the late 1800s as a slang term for someone or something considered the best.