quaint

Quaint comes from Middle English queynte or quoynte, borrowed from Anglo-Norman cointe and Old French cointe, meaning 'pretty, clever, knowing.' That in turn traces back to Latin cognitus, the past participle of cognōscō, 'to know.'

The word started out praising cleverness and knowingness, but somewhere along the way it drifted from describing sharp wit to describing charming, old-fashioned oddness — the opposite of sharp.

It shares a root with 'cognition' and 'cognizant,' both of which come from the same Latin verb cognōscō, 'to know.'