Trivia and quiz night glossary

24 terms a quiz host or player runs into, each explained in a few sentences. What a tiebreaker is, how a matching round works, why a question has to be evergreen.

Trivia

Facts of little practical importance that are satisfying to know. The word comes from the Latin trivium, a place where three roads meet, and came to mean commonplace things. As a game, trivia means answering factual questions for points.

Pub quiz

A quiz night held in a bar, usually weekly, with teams of two to six answering rounds of questions read aloud by a host. It began in Britain in the 1970s as a way to fill quiet weeknights and spread worldwide.

Quiz night

Any organised evening of trivia rounds, whether in a pub, a school hall, an office or a living room. Five rounds of ten questions is the usual shape.

Round

A block of questions on one theme or format, scored together. A quiz night is made of several rounds with a break for marking between them.

Tiebreaker

A question with a single numeric answer used to separate teams that finish level. Closest guess wins, so it never produces a second tie. Every topic page on this site lists three.

Host

The person who reads the questions, keeps time and settles disputes. Also called the quizmaster. The host does not play.

Quizmaster

Another name for the host. In British usage it also implies the person who wrote the questions.

Answer sheet

The paper each team writes its answers on, one per round, collected and marked before the next round begins.

Answer key

The host's list of correct answers, kept separate from the question sheet so it can be handed to a marker without giving anything away.

Multiple choice

A question format that offers several answers, usually four, of which one is correct. Easier than open questions because recognition is easier than recall.

Distractor

A wrong option in a multiple-choice question, written to look plausible. A good distractor is something a half-informed player would pick.

Open question

A question with no options offered; the player must produce the answer from memory. Typed and spoken quizzes use this format.

True or false

A format where each item is a single statement to judge. Fast to run and easy to mark, so it suits the start of a night.

Matching round

Ten questions and ten lettered answers in a scrambled list; teams pair them up. Every letter is used exactly once, so getting nine right forces the tenth.

Spot the false one

A set of four statements, three true and one false; teams circle the lie. It rewards reasoning as much as knowledge.

Name all the

A format made famous by Sporcle and JetPunk: a list, a clock, and a box to type into. Name all fifty states, all the elements, every country in Africa.

Daily quiz

A fixed set of questions that is the same for every player on a given day and changes at midnight. The format keeps people coming back once a day rather than bingeing.

Streak

The number of consecutive days a player has completed the daily quiz. Missing a day resets it.

General knowledge

Questions a well-read adult could answer without specialist study: basic science, geography, common history, language. The round nobody can revise for.

Evergreen

A question whose answer will not change. Which city hosted the 1992 Olympics is evergreen; who holds a world record is not. This site only carries evergreen questions.

Speed round

A round against the clock, often sixty seconds, where the score is the number of correct answers rather than a share of a fixed set.

Wipeout round

A round where one wrong answer loses all points for that round, so teams may leave questions blank. A good final round because it changes the strategy.

Joker

In some formats each team nominates one round to count double before it starts. It rewards teams that know their own strengths.

Picture round

A handout sheet of images to identify, marked at the end. This site does not run picture rounds because the images would belong to someone else.