Quāint, a.

(kwānt), a. [O. Fr. cointe, cultivated, amiable, agreeable; Pr. cointe, coinde, It. conto, fr. Lat. cognitus, acquainted, and partly from comptus, adorned, elegant, polished.]

1. Characterized by ingenuity or art; recondite; subtle; artificially elegant; nice; neat. “A shepherd young and quaint.” Chapman.
2. Hence, showing excess of art; far-fetched; affected; odd; whimsical. “Some stroke of quaint yet simple pleasantry.” Macaulay.
3. Odd and antique; curious and fanciful; singular; unusual. “An old, long-faced, long-bodied servant in quaint livery.” W. Irving.

Syn. — Ingenious; artful; far-fetched; affected; odd; whimsical; singular; unusual.—QUAINT, ODD, WHIMSICAL. Quaint, in our early writers, meant nice or elegant, and hence ingenious. In this sense it often occurs in Shakespeare; as, a quaint device, quaintly written, &c., and is used as a term of praise. Gradually, however, there sprang up a perverted ingenuity in such writers as Quarles, and many among the Puritans, to which we now give the name of quaintness. It is something queer and laughable, but not foolish. The quaint writers have usually strong thought, but a strange and whimsical way of expressing it. Their wit is sly, but odd; their images are often far-fetched or unnatural, and there is a strange contrast between the gravity of their thoughts and the fanciful or whimsical garb in which they are presented. Hence the word became a term of dispraise, denoting affected, which Johnson declared to be its meaning in his day. At present (perhaps from a deference to the old writers mentioned) it has received the united sense of antique and odd. 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, &c. You were glad to be employed, To show how quaint an orator you are. Shak. I never saw a better fashioned gown, More quaint, more pleasing, nor more commendable. Shak. Entering into holy orders, he [R. Corbet] became a most quaint preacher, and therefore much followed by ingenious men. Wood.