Quaint

How to spell quaint

6 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce quaint

What does quaint mean?

1. adjectiveAttractively unusual or old-fashioned in a charming way.

Quaint in a sentence

• The village had a quaint little tearoom on the corner.

• They rented a quaint cottage with low beams and a thatched roof.

Where does quaint come from?

Language of origin: French

Quaint travelled into English in the 1200s from the Old French word cointe, which meant clever, skilful, or elegant. That French word descended from the Latin cognitus, the past participle of cognoscere, meaning 'to get to know' or 'to recognise', so at its root quaint literally carried the idea of something knowing or expertly made. In its earliest English life it described a person who was cunning or a thing that was cleverly and intricately crafted, a sense quite far from today's meaning. Over the centuries the praise softened: an object that was elaborately ingenious came to seem merely curious, and eventually charmingly old-fashioned, which is the modern flavour. The same Latin cognoscere root sits behind familiar words like 'recognise' and 'cognition', a useful reminder that the silent-looking 'qua' opening hides a long Latin pedigree.

How the word is built

• quaint (single root, from Old French cointe 'clever, elegant', ultimately Latin cognitus 'known')