Quaint (adjective) “unusually attractive, especially in an old-fashioned way” This 18th-century sense is almost all that remains of the dozen or so meanings of quaint which have been part of English since the 13th century, and several of these older uses are found in Shakespeare’s plays. Thus we find the banquet in The Tempest vanishing “with a quaint device” (III.iii.54), where the word means “ingenious”. In The Merchant of Venice, Portia tells Nerissa that, dressed as men, they will tell “quaint lies” (III.iv.69), where it means “cunning”. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Titania talks to Oberon about “quaint mazes” (II.i.99), where it means “elaborate”. In The Two Noble Kinsman, a boy sings of daisies that are “most quaint” (I.i.5), where it means pretty. And in some editions of Titus Andronicus, Demetrius describes Lavinia’s chastity as a “quaint hope” (II.iii.126), where it means “prim”. In all these cases, the modern nuance of oddness should be carefully avoided.

David Crystal is the author, with Ben Crystal, of Shakespeare’s Words, published by Penguin