DICT.TW Dictionary Taiwan
174.129.59.198

Search for:
[Show options]
[Pronunciation] [Help] [Database Info] [Server Info]

3 definitions found

From: DICT.TW English-Chinese Dictionary 英漢字典

 quaint /ˈkwent/
 (a.)古雅的,離奇有趣的,奇怪的

From: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)

 Quaint a.
 1. Prudent; wise; hence, crafty; artful; wily. [Obs.]
    Clerks be full subtle and full quaint.   --Chaucer.
 2. Characterized by ingenuity or art; finely fashioned; skillfully wrought; elegant; graceful; nice; neat. [Archaic] The queynte ring.” His queynte spear.” --Chaucer. A shepherd young quaint.”
    Every look was coy and wondrous quaint.   --Spenser.
    To show bow quaint an orator you are.   --Shak.
 3. Curious and fanciful; affected; odd; whimsical; antique; archaic; singular; unusual; as, quaint architecture; a quaint expression.
    Some stroke of quaint yet simple pleasantry.   --Macaulay.
    An old, long-faced, long-bodied servant in quaint livery.   --W. Irving.
 Syn: -- Quaint, Odd, Antique.
 Usage: Antique is applied to that which has come down from the ancients, or which is made to imitate some ancient work of art. Odd implies disharmony, incongruity, or unevenness. An odd thing or person is an exception to general rules of calculation and procedure, or expectation and common experience. In the current use of quaint, the two ideas of odd and antique are combined, and the word is commonly applied to that which is pleasing by reason of both these qualities.  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.
 

From: WordNet (r) 2.0

 quaint
      adj 1: strange in an interesting or pleasing way; "quaint dialect
             words"; "quaint streets of New Orleans, that most
             foreign of American cities"
      2: very strange or unusual; odd or even incongruous in
         character or appearance; "the head terminating in the
         quaint duck bill which gives the animal its vernacular
         name"- Bill Beatty; "came forth a quaint and fearful
         sight"- Sir Walter Scott; "a quaint sense of humor"
      3: attractively old-fashioned (but not necessarily authentic);
         "houses with quaint thatched roofs"; "a vaulted roof
         supporting old-time chimney pots" [syn: old-time, olde
         worlde]