| / English Dictionary |
QUAINT
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Strange in an interesting or pleasing way
Example:
quaint streets of New Orleans, that most foreign of American cities
Classified under:
Similar:
strange; unusual (being definitely out of the ordinary and unexpected; slightly odd or even a bit weird)
Derivation:
quaintness (strangeness as a consequence of being old fashioned)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Very strange or unusual; odd or even incongruous in character or appearance
Example:
a quaint sense of humor
Classified under:
Similar:
strange; unusual (being definitely out of the ordinary and unexpected; slightly odd or even a bit weird)
Sense 3
Meaning:
Attractively old-fashioned (but not necessarily authentic)
Example:
a vaulted roof supporting old-time chimney pots
Synonyms:
old-time; olde worlde; quaint
Classified under:
Adjectives
Similar:
fashionable; stylish (being or in accordance with current social fashions)
Derivation:
quaintness (the quality of being quaint and old-fashioned)
Context examples:
Then I began to notice that there were some quaint little specks floating in the rays of the moonlight.
(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)
When I saw you, for the first time, coming out at the door, with your quaint little basket of keys hanging at your side?
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
“Rather quaint,” said Utterson.
(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)
Perhaps I have dwelt too long upon this new acquaintance, but he is to be my comrade for many a day, and so I have tried to set him down as I first saw him, with his quaint personality and his queer little tricks of speech and of thought.
(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Seen by the dim light of the dips, their number to me appeared countless, though not in reality exceeding eighty; they were uniformly dressed in brown stuff frocks of quaint fashion, and long holland pinafores.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
They are very pretty, but I think you're rather too young for such ornaments, Amy, said Mrs. March, looking at the plump little hand, with the band of sky-blue stones on the forefinger, and the quaint guard formed of two tiny golden hands clasped together.
(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)
I could not but note the quaint legal phrase which she used in such a place, and with all seriousness.
(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)
There was no one in the quaint old drawing-room, though it presented tokens of Mrs. Heep's whereabouts.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
In the course of his nightly patrols, he had long grown accustomed to the quaint effect with which the footfalls of a single person, while he is still a great way off, suddenly spring out distinct from the vast hum and clatter of the city.
(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)
All this I shall some day write at fuller length, and amidst these more stirring days I would tenderly sketch in these lovely summer evenings, when with the deep blue sky above us we lay in good comradeship among the long grasses by the wood and marveled at the strange fowl that swept over us and the quaint new creatures which crept from their burrows to watch us, while above us the boughs of the bushes were heavy with luscious fruit, and below us strange and lovely flowers peeped at us from among the herbage; or those long moonlit nights when we lay out upon the shimmering surface of the great lake and watched with wonder and awe the huge circles rippling out from the sudden splash of some fantastic monster; or the greenish gleam, far down in the deep water, of some strange creature upon the confines of darkness.
(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
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