Home › Glossary › Letter Q

quaint

Archaic Terms
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

Clever, skillfully crafted, or ingeniously made; showing elaborate artistry; also means charmingly old-fashioned or pleasingly odd in an attractive, antique way.

Detailed Definition
Originally positive, “quaint” described artful design. In archaic poetry, it praises wit or craftsmanship. The term’s duality allows irony—quaint devices may hide danger. Poets use it to explore surface versus depth, where quaintness charms or deceives, reinforcing themes of artifice, nostalgia, and perception in descriptive and satirical verse.
Example
Example in poetry:
“Her chamber was quaint with old trinkets,” in a nostalgic description; In Shakespeare’s Hamlet: “This was the very coinage of your brain... / You cannot, sir, take from me anything that I will more willingly part withal—except my life, except my life, except my life”—but “quaint” elsewhere means clever or unusual; “The quaint device unlocked the chest”; “His quaint verse charmed the court”; “A quaint belief, yet comforting”; The cottage was quaint, but warm.
Additional Notes
“Quaint” originally praised ingenuity (“quaint device”), later shifted to old-fashioned charm; in poetic description, it can signal admiration or gentle mockery, depending on context and tone.
Also Known As
clever ingenious odd
Skip to main content