quaint

/kweɪnt/

/kweɪnt/

Other forms: quaintest; quainter

Quaint means strange and unusual in an old-fashioned and charming way. It's a word you'd use to describe a little store that sells tea cozies and antique tea services, or your grandmother's habit of calling the radio the "wireless."

There is a commonly used sarcastic sense of quaint — when something is run down or shabby and you're trying to say something positive, you might substitute "How...quaint" for "How...interesting." In Middle English, this adjective meant "clever" or "cunning." Its origin is Old French queinte, cointe, from Latin cognitus "known," from cognōscere "to learn."

Definitions of quaint

1. adjective

   attractively old-fashioned (but not necessarily authentic)
   “houses with quaint thatched roofs”

   synonyms: old-time, olde worlde

   fashionable, stylish

   being or in accordance with current social fashions
2. adjective

   strange in an interesting or pleasing way
   “quaint dialect words”

   “quaint streets of New Orleans, that most foreign of American cities”

   synonyms:

   strange, unusual

   being definitely out of the ordinary and unexpected; slightly odd or even a bit weird
3. adjective

   very strange or unusual; odd or even incongruous in character or appearance
   “"the head terminating in the quaint duck bill which gives the animal its vernacular name"- Bill Beatty”

   “"came forth a quaint and fearful sight"- Sir Walter Scott”

   “a quaint sense of humor”

   synonyms:

   strange, unusual

   being definitely out of the ordinary and unexpected; slightly odd or even a bit weird