quaintrelle
/kweɪnˈtɹɛl/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 0.00 in modern English
20
Scrabble Score
11
Letters
2
Syllables
9
Unique Chars
Meaning
Example Sentences
- "It folweth nouht that thouh j be thus kembt and a litel make the queyntrelle that for swich cause j am fair"
- "On this evening, however, Warthrop became as punctilious as the fussiest quaintrelle. I, as his impromptu valet, bore the brunt of his anxiety. His waistcoat was wrinkled. His shoes were scuffed. His cravat was crooked."
- "From Rosie the Riveter to Coco Channel^([sic – meaning Coco Chanel]) (in pants!), from Amelia Earhart to the quaintrelle (the female dandy), change in women's dress has symbolized everything from the right and need to work outside the home to wearing pants as a fashion statement to excelling at a profession (even as an aviatrix) to once again claiming the right to cultivate life's pleasures."
- "Her sparkling, hazel eyes emitted a pearly glow … the windows to to ^([sic]) an untarnished, unblemished soul. Her spirit was that of a quaintrelle. He was struck by her nuances, which did not seem so subtle after all."
- "She was the type of woman who deserved to live in a villa or a fancy hotel. The kind of woman you named a star after. A quaintrelle."
- "His smile becomes the flowering flame, a bunch / Of exquisitely beautiful daisies / Among which dandies and quaintrelles flourish / With parrot and chameleon power in full bloom."
Etymology
Borrowed from Late Middle English queyntrelle (“person of fashion”), from Middle French cointerelle, from Middle French cointerel (“vain”) + -elle, -ele (suffix forming feminine diminutive nouns), possibly influenced by quaint. Cointerel is derived from cointe (“clever, intelligent; quaint”), from Latin cognitus (“known, recognized; acknowledged, noted”), the perfect passive participle of cōgnōscō (“to be acquainted (with), recognize; to learn; to know”), from con- (prefix meaning ‘with’) + (g)nōscō (“to know, recognize”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *ǵneh₃- (“to know”) + *-sḱéti (suffix forming durative or iterative imperfective verbs from roots)).
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: *ǵneh₃-, queyntrelle, cointerelle, cointerel, cognitus
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /kweɪnˈtɹɛl/
- British English: /kweɪnˈtɹɛl/