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Quaint vs Irregular - What's the difference?

quaint | irregular | Related terms |

Quaint is a related term of irregular.


As adjectives the difference between quaint and irregular

is that quaint is (obsolete) of a person: cunning, crafty while irregular is irregular.

As a noun quaint

is (archaic) the vulva.

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.’

    irregular

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Nonstandard; not conforming to rules or expectations.
  • * {{quote-book
  • , year = 1967 , first = Barbara , last = Sleigh , authorlink = Barbara Sleigh , title = (Jessamy) , edition = 1993 , location = Sevenoaks, Kent , publisher=Bloomsbury , isbn = 0 340 19547 9 , page = 33 , url = , passage = ‘ “It would be most irregular' Grandpa!” says Miss Cecily frowning and tapping her foot. “Well, we’re a pretty ' irregular family so that’s neither here nor there,” says the old man, impish like. [...] ’ }}
  • Of a surface, rough.
  • Without symmetry, regularity, or uniformity.
  • *{{quote-book, year=1944, author=(w)
  • , title= The Three Corpse Trick, chapter=5 , passage=The hovel stood in the centre of what had once been a vegetable garden, but was now a patch of rank weeds. Surrounding this, almost like a zareba, was an irregular ring of gorse and brambles, an unclaimed vestige of the original common.}}
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-01-01, author=Paul Bartel, Ashli Moore
  • , volume=101, issue=1, page=47–48, magazine=(American Scientist) , title= Avian Migration: The Ultimate Red-Eye Flight , passage=Many of these classic methods are still used, with some modern improvements. For example, with the aid of special microphones and automated sound detection software, ornithologists recently reported […] that pine siskins (Spinus pinus ) undergo an irregular , nomadic type of nocturnal migration.}}
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-07-19, author= Ian Sample
  • , volume=189, issue=6, page=34, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly) , title= Irregular bedtimes may affect children's brains , passage=Irregular bedtimes may disrupt healthy brain development in young children, according to a study of intelligence and sleeping habits.  ¶ Going to bed at a different time each night affected girls more than boys, but both fared worse on mental tasks than children who had a set bedtime, researchers found.}}
  • Not regular; having sides that are not equal or angles that are not equal.
  • Whose faces are not all regular polygons (or are not equally inclined to each other).
  • Antonyms

    * regular

    Derived terms

    * irregular plural * irregular verb

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A soldier who is not a member of an official military force and, often, does not follow regular army tactics.