Meanings
- uncountableUsed as a placeholder word or metasyntactic variable.
Perl doesn't care if you call your loop labels things like XYZZY or PLUGH.
2008, Randal L Schwartz, Tom Phoenix, Brian Foy, Learning Perl4 more examples
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.
2001, Simson Garfinkel, Gene Spafford, Web Security, Privacy and CommerceSuppose 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...
2002, Mark Gaynor, Network Services Investment GuideThe path that relates xyzzy to XYZZY cycles many times through the single state of the transducer.
2005, Ruslan Mitkov, The Oxford Handbook of Computational LinguisticsHow 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.
2006, Venkat Subramaniam, Andy Hunt, Practices of an Agile Developer
Origin
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.
Full word history & related roots →Rhymes & wordplay
Rhymes with xyzzy
All rhymes →Cite this entry
xyzzy. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/xyzzy
“xyzzy.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/xyzzy. Accessed November 2, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “xyzzy,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/xyzzy.
Source: xyzzy on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.