quaint

quaint

adjective \ˈkwānt\

Definition of QUAINT

1

obsolete : expert, skilled

2

a : marked by skillful design <quaint with many a device in India ink — Herman Melville>

b : marked by beauty or elegance

3

a : unusual or different in character or appearance : odd

b : pleasingly or strikingly old-fashioned or unfamiliar <a quaint phrase>

— quaint·ly adverb

— quaint·ness noun

Examples of QUAINT

1. The fishing village was very quaint.
2. The writer talks about the quaint customs of the natives.
3. A lot can change in 25 years, and Yountville has gone from an also-ran on the Napa food-and-wine tourism scene to the focus of activity. The quaint bed and breakfasts of yesterday have been replaced by upscale hotels and inns, and the village has become a mecca for top chefs. —Tim Fish, Wine Spectator, 15 June 2008
4. Therefore, when the federal Constitutional Convention decided in 1787 that U.S. senators would be appointed by state legislatures rather than elected by the people at large, the drafters were actually placing the choice of U.S. senators in the control of state leaders who had met their states' highest qualifications for property and religion. Today, these property and religious qualifications are likely to strike us as quaint historical oddities. —Richard N. Rosenfeld, Harper's, May 2004
5. Five minutes by ferry from the bustling concrete depths of Wall Street sits what could be a quaint New England town: stately, collegiate buildings framed by tree-lined walkways where the wind rustles through aging oak trees. —Andrea Elliott,New York Times, 25 July 2003

Origin of QUAINT

Middle English queinte, cointe, from Anglo-French, clever, expert, from Latin cognitus, past participle of cognoscere to know — more at cognition

First Known Use: 13th century

Related to QUAINT

Synonyms

bizarre, bizarro, cranky, crazy, curious, eccentric, erratic, far-out, funky, funny, kinky, kooky (also kookie), offbeat, off-kilter, off-the-wall, outlandish, out-of-the-way, outré, peculiar, odd, queer, queerish, quirky, remarkable, rum [chiefly British], screwy, spaced-out, strange, wacky (also whacky), way-out, weird, weirdo, wild

Antonyms

contemporary, current, hot, mod, modern, modernist, modernistic, new age, newfangled, new-fashioned, present-day, red-hot, space-age, state-of-the-art, ultramodern, up-to-date

Related Words

aberrant, abnormal, addlepated, flaky; extraordinary, fantastic (also fantastical), freak, freakish, freaky, phantasmagoric (or phantasmagorical), phenomenal; atypical, rare, singular, uncommon, uncustomary, unique, unusual, unwonted; conspicuous, notable, noticeable, outstanding, prominent, salient, striking; atrocious, outrageous, shocking; crotchety, idiosyncratic, nonconformist, nonmainstream, out-there, unconventional, unorthodox; baffling, bewildering, confounding, mystifying, perplexing, puzzling

Near Antonyms

average, commonplace, everyday, garden, normal, ordinary, prosaic, routine, run-of-the-mill, standard, typical, unexceptional, unremarkable, usual, workaday; conformist, conservative, conventional; expected, familiar, knee-jerk, predictable; common, customary, frequent, habitual, regular, wonted

See Synonym Discussion at strange

Rhymes with QUAINT

faint, feint, paint, plaint, saint, taint