What is the difference between charm and quaint?

As nouns the difference between charm and quaint

is that charm is an object, act or words believed to have magic power or charm can be the mixed sound of many voices, especially of birds or children while quaint is (archaic) the vulva.

As a verb charm

is to seduce, persuade or fascinate someone or something.

As a adjective quaint is

(obsolete) of a person: cunning, crafty.

charm

English

Etymology 1

From (etyl) charme'' (chant, magic spell), from (etyl) ''carmen (song, incantation)

Noun

(en noun)

An object, act or words believed to have magic power.

a charm against evil

It works like a charm .

The ability to persuade, delight or arouse admiration; often constructed in the plural.

He had great personal charm .

She tried to win him over with her charms .

* Alexander Pope

Charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul.

* Milton

the charm of beauty's powerful glance

(physics) A quantum number of hadrons]] determined by the quantity of [[charm quark, charm quarks & antiquarks.

A small trinket on a bracelet or chain, etc., traditionally supposed to confer luck upon the wearer.

She wears a charm bracelet on her wrist.

Synonyms

* (something with magic power ): amulet, incantation, spell, talisman * (quality of arousing delight or admiration ): appeal, attraction, charisma * (trinket ): amulet, dangle, ornament

Antonyms

* (quality of arousing delight or admiration ): boredom, dryness

Verb

(en verb)

To seduce, persuade or fascinate someone or something.

* (John Milton)

They, on their mirth and dance / Intent, with jocund music charm his ear.

, title=(The Celebrity), chapter=4 , passage=The Celebrity, by arts unknown, induced Mrs. Judge Short and two other ladies to call at Mohair on an afternoon when Mr. Cooke was trying a trotter on the track. The three returned wondering and charmed with Mrs. Cooke; they were sure she had had no hand in the furnishing of that atrocious house.}}

To use a magical charm upon; to subdue, control, or summon by incantation or supernatural influence.

* (William Shakespeare)

No witchcraft charm thee!

To protect with, or make invulnerable by, spells, charms, or supernatural influences.

* (William Shakespeare)

I, in my own woe charmed , / Could not find death.

(obsolete, rare) To make music upon.

* (Edmund Spenser)

Here we our slender pipes may safely charm .

To subdue or overcome by some secret power, or by that which gives pleasure; to allay; to soothe.

* (Alexander Pope)

Music the fiercest grief can charm .

Synonyms

* (seduce, entrance or fascinate ): delight, enchant, entrance, win one over * (use magic ): bewitch, enchant, ensorcel, enspell

Derived terms

* (l) * (l) * (l) * (l) * (l) * (l)

Etymology 2

Variant of (chirm), from (etyl) chirme, from (etyl) .

Noun

(en noun)

The mixed sound of many voices, especially of birds or children.

* 1667 , John Milton, Paradise Lost , Book IV:

Sweet is the breath of Morn, her rising sweet, / With charm of earliest Birds

* Spenser

free liberty to chant our charms at will

* 1955 , William Golding, The Inheritors , Faber and Faber 2005, p. 152:

The laughter rose like the charm of starlings.

A flock, group (especially of finches).

Anagrams

* English collective nouns ----

quaint

English

Etymology 1

From (etyl) cointe, (queinte) et al., (etyl) .

Adjective

(er)

(obsolete) Of a person: cunning, crafty.

* 1591 , (William Shakespeare), Henry VI part 2 :

But you, my Lord, were glad to be imploy'd, / To shew how queint an Orator you are.

(obsolete) Cleverly made; artfully contrived.

* 1667 , (John Milton), Paradise Lost , Book IX:

describe races and games, / Or tilting furniture, imblazon'd shields, / Impresses quaint , caparisons and steeds, / Bases and tinsel trappings [...].

* 1596 , (Edmund Spenser), The Faerie Queene , IV.4:

Till that there entered on the other side / A straunger knight, from whence no man could reed, / In quyent disguise, full hard to be descride […].

* 1808 , (Walter Scott), Marmion XX:

Lord Gifford, deep beneath the ground, / Heard Alexander's bugle sound, / And tarried not his garb to change, / But, in his wizard habit strange, / Came forth,—a quaint and fearful sight!

* 1924 , Time , 17 Nov 1924:

What none would dispute though many smiled over was the good-humored, necessary, yet quaint omission of the writer's name from the whole consideration.

(obsolete) Overly discriminating or needlessly meticulous; fastidious; prim.

* 1590 , (Edmund Spenser), The Faerie Queene , III.7:

She, nothing quaint / Nor 'sdeignfull of so homely fashion, / Sith brought she was now to so hard constraint, / Sate downe upon the dusty ground anon [...].

Pleasingly unusual; especially, having old-fashioned charm.

* 1815 , (Jane Austen), Emma :

I admire all that quaint , old-fashioned politeness; it is much more to my taste than modern ease; modern ease often disgusts me.

* 2011 , Ian Sample, The Guardian , 31 Jan 2011:

The rock is a haven for rare wildlife, a landscape where pretty hedgerows and quaint villages are bordered by a breathtaking, craggy coastline.

Synonyms

* See also

Derived terms

* quaintly * quaintness

Etymology 2

A variant of cunt (possibly as a pun).

Noun

(en noun)

(archaic) The vulva.

* c. 1390 , Geoffrey Chaucer, "The Wife of Bath's Tale", Canterbury Tales :

And trewely, as myne housbondes tolde me, / I hadde þe beste queynte þat myghte be.

* 2003 , Peter Ackroyd, The Clerkenwell Tales , p. 9:

The rest looked on, horrified, as Clarice trussed up her habit and in open view placed her hand within her queynte crying, ‘The first house of Sunday belongs to the sun, and the second to Venus.’