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PlainSpell

quaint

/kweɪnt/adjective

quaint is spelled Q-U-A-I-N-T: 6 letters and one syllable. It appears 1.9 times per million words in written English, the 20,356th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As an adjective, quaint means “Strange or odd; unusual” (English Wiktionary, September 2026).

How many letters and syllables are in quaint?

Letters6: Q-U-A-I-N-T
Syllables1 (from its American pronunciation)
In writing1.9 times per million words; the 20,356th most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searchednone measured in search
Same letters

Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.

How common is quaint?

Quaint appears 1.9 times per million words in written English, the 20,356th most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How do you pronounce quaint?

  • /kweɪnt/

Quaint has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-quaint.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

What rhymes with quaint?

No other word on PlainSpell ends in the same sounds as quaint.

Spelled with the same letters in another order: quinta.

Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).

Forms of quaint

  • quainter comparative
  • quaintest superlative

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What does quaint mean?

The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).

adjective

  1. 1

    obsoleteOf a person: cunning, crafty.

  2. 2

    obsoleteCleverly made; artfully contrived.

  3. 3

    Strange or odd; unusual.

  4. 4

    obsoleteOverly discriminating or needlessly meticulous; fastidious; prim.

  5. 5

    Pleasingly unusual; especially, having old-fashioned charm.

noun

  1. 1

    obsoleteThe vulva.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

Quaint in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchpittoresque, vieillot (having old-fashioned charm), remarquable (interestingly strange), incongru, inconvenant, malséant (incongruous, inappropriate or illogical)
Germanpittoresk, malerisch (having old-fashioned charm), kurios, wunderlich, komisch (interestingly strange)
Portugueseencanto (having old-fashioned charm), curioso (interestingly strange)
Spanishpintoresco (having old-fashioned charm), curioso (interestingly strange), fastidioso (fastidious)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does quaint come from?

From Middle English queynte, quoynte, from Anglo-Norman cointe, queinte and Old French cointe (“pretty, clever, knowing”), from Latin cognitus, past participle of cognōscō (“to know”).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What to look up after quaint