Comments on: Tizzy

By: julee

julee — Sun, 02 Aug 2020 08:48:36 +0000

I don’t see why no one has considered Italian “stizzoso”, excitable or agitated; semantically the same and pretty darn close sound-wise.

Any early sources using “stizzy fit” with an s-?

By: Dena

Dena — Mon, 29 Aug 2016 20:55:09 +0000

I heard this word my entire life and believe it to be of Appalachian dialect origin.

By: Shonna

Shonna — Sat, 20 Sep 2014 05:59:59 +0000

My twins’ voice dialect coach had them playing with a British accent today. We are Canadians. He had them say “It is” and then “It isn’t”, back and forth, quickly. T’is! T’isn’t! T’is! T’isn’t!
When they did it back and forth, it was really dizzying, and he said he believes that in a “Tizzy” came from some such debate!
Good story, if nothing else!

By: Gordon Schumacher

Gordon Schumacher — Sat, 30 Oct 2010 00:34:26 +0000

In fact, backing up to another slightly archaic slang usage, I find “scatterbrained or silly” also very suggestive of the word…

By: Gordon Schumacher

Gordon Schumacher — Sat, 30 Oct 2010 00:32:55 +0000

As a self-described “armchair linguist” (much to my wife’s consternation, since she is going to school for the real thing!) I would have guessed wildly that “tizzy” was a corruption of “dizzy” – especially in light of the definition of “characterized by impulsive haste” which has fallen somewhat into disuse. Also consider that “dizzying”, rather than literally indicating “something which makes one feel dizzy”, suggests “something bewildering”, which is also not that far off.