QUAINT • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Quaint

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

/kweɪnt/ Listen

adjective

Quaint adj.

1.

Prudent; wise; hence, crafty; artful; wily. (Obs.) "Clerks be full subtle and full quaint."

2.

Characterized by ingenuity or art; finely fashioned; skillfully wrought; elegant; graceful; nice; neat. (Archaic) " The queynte ring." " His queynte spear." " A shepherd young quaint." "Every look was coy and wondrous quaint." "To show bow quaint an orator you are."

3.

Curious and fanciful; affected; odd; whimsical; antique; archaic; singular; unusual; as, quaint architecture; a quaint expression. "Some stroke of quaint yet simple pleasantry." "An old, long-faced, long-bodied servant in quaint livery."

Synonyms: Quaint, Odd, Antique. Antique is applied to that which has come down from the ancients, or which is made to imitate some ancient work of art. Odd implies disharmony, incongruity, or unevenness. An odd thing or person is an exception to general rules of calculation and procedure, or expectation and common experience. In the current use of quaint, the two ideas of odd and antique are combined, and the word is commonly applied to that which is pleasing by reason of both these qualities. Thus, we speak of the quaint architecture of many old buildings in London; or a quaint expression, uniting at once the antique and the fanciful.

See images of 'Quaint'

Etymology of 'Quaint'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar

"Quaint" Quotes from Famous Books

... fields of childhood, and leads another little boy to that non-locatable land called "Brer Rabbit's Laughing Place," and again the quaint animals spring into active life and play their parts, for the edification of a small ...

— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss

... of distant countries From North to South that range, Of strange fantastic nations, And their customs quaint and strange. ...

— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... box-respirators in the alert position. To avoid the passage of a column of ammunition waggons crunching along one of the narrow streets we stepped inside a crumbling house. No sign of furniture, no stove, but in one corner—quaint relic of less eventful days—a sewing-machine, ...

— Pushed and the Return Push • George Herbert Fosdike Nichols, (AKA Quex)

... been widely diffused on Asiatic and European soil, and shortly after the colonization of America it appeared in our colonies. Many are the quaint records of its visitations, not the least interesting of which is a letter which appeared in the Boston Evening Post, November 12, 1739, entitled "A letter about good management under the distemper of measles at this time spreading in the country, here published for the benefit of the poor and ...

— Measles • W. C. Rucker

... everything genuine. Such as I am, I am genuine myself. Hah! A gentleman's watch with two cases in the old fashion. May I remove it from the outer case? Thank you. Aye? An old silk watch-lining, worked with beads! I have often seen these among old Dutch people and Belgians. Quaint things!' ...

— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens

Copyright © 2025 Dictionary One.com