c.1225, "cunning, proud, ingenious," from O.Fr.
cointe "pretty, clever, knowing," from L.
cognitus "known," pp. of
cognoscere "get or come to know well" (see
cognizance). Sense of "old-fashioned but charming" is first attested 1795, and could describe the word itself, which had become rare after c.1700 (though it soon recovered popularity in this secondary sense). Chaucer used
quaint and
queynte as spellings of
cunt in "Canterbury Tales" (1386), and Andrew Marvell may be punning on it similarly in "To His Coy Mistress" (1650).
[kweynt] 
