In English, viz. means that is or namely, both of which usually work better than viz. in most types of writing. It’s used in legal and technical writing as well as in footnotes of books because it saves space.
Viz. is short for the Latin loanword videlicet (meaning, literally, it is permitted to see). As with the abbreviations e.g. and i.e., viz. is followed by a period and should be set off from the surrounding sentence by commas.
Examples
These writers use viz. correctly (excepting the lack of comma after viz. in the first example), but there’s no reason why that is or namely shouldn’t be used instead:
This World Cup is seen to be contested between only six major competitors, viz. India, Australia, South Africa, England, Sri Lanka and New Zealand. [iSport.in]
Now, Payanam, which is to roll out of the Prakash Raj stable soon, is again on a subject Radha hasn’t handled before, viz., airline hijack. [The Hindu]
The overuse of viz. appears most common in Indian English, but we’re not qualified to comment on why this is.
