interjection
shazam
shuh-ZAM
interjection
1
Said to announce that a magic trick or sudden transformation has just happened.
"He waved his hand over the hat and shouted, "Shazam!" as the rabbit appeared."
verb
1
To identify a song playing nearby using the Shazam music-recognition app.
"I shazamed the track playing in the cafe to find out who sang it."
How to Use Shazam
Learner’s notesIn plain EnglishA magic word for "and suddenly it happened" — later borrowed as the name of a song-identifying app, which then became a verb.
Common pairings
shazam a song
say shazam
Word Forms
shazammed past tense, shazams singular
Study it as flashcards or scroll it in Flow — saved to your collection.
Test yourself on “shazam”
A quick quiz — meaning, synonyms & usage
→
Fill the Gap
Can you complete this real example?
He waved his hand over the hat and shouted, "_____!" as the rabbit appeared.
Etymology
Coined in 1940 by comic writer Bill Parker as an acronym built from six mythical strongmen: Solomon, Hercules, Atlas, Zeus, Achilles, and Mercury.