izzard

iz·zard  (zrd)

n. Informal

The letter z.

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[Probably variant (perhaps influenced by lizard or gizzard) of Scots ezed, variant of zed.]

Our Living Language The curious form izzard, meaning "the letter z," sounds a lot like words such as lizard and gizzard. That's because izzard was probably modeled on them to form a humorous version of the name of the letter that appears as zed in Great Britain and ezed in Scotland. Izzard is practically limited to certain fixed regional expressions such as from A to izzard, "from beginning to end," and not to know A from izzard, "not to know even the most basic things."

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izzard [ˈɪzəd]

n

Archaic the letter Z

[from earlier ezed, probably from Old French et zède, literally: and zed]

Thesaurus

Noun

1.

izzard - the 26th letter of the Roman alphabet; "the British call Z zed and the Scots call it ezed but Americans call it zee"; "he doesn't know A from izzard" ezed, zed, zee, z Latin alphabet, Roman alphabet - the alphabet evolved by the ancient Romans which serves for writing most of the languages of western Europe alphabetic character, letter of the alphabet, letter - the conventional characters of the alphabet used to represent speech; "his grandmother taught him his letters"