Word.ws English Dictionary

poynant

poynant is the obsolete form of poignant.

Meaning of poignant

Adjective

poignant (comparative more poignant, superlative most poignant)

  1. (obsolete, usually) Sharp-pointed; keen.
    • His siluer shield, now idle maisterlesse; / His poynant speare, that many made to bleed [...].1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book VII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC
  2. Neat; eloquent; applicable; relevant.
    • A poignant reply will garner more credence than hours of blown smoke.
  3. Evoking strong mental sensation, to the point of distress; emotionally moving.
    • Flipping through his high school yearbook evoked many a poignant memory of yesteryear.
    Synonyms:
    distressing, moving
  4. (figuratively, taste) Piquant, pungent.
  5. (figuratively, word) Incisive; penetrating; piercing.
    • His comments were poignant and witty.
  6. (UK, dated) Inducing sharp physical pain.

Questions about poynant

What is poynant the obsolete form of?
Poynant is the obsolete form of poignant.

Words near poynant in the dictionary

  1. Poyle
  2. Poylish
  3. poynado
  4. poynadoes
  5. poynados
  6. poynant
  7. poynard
  8. poynards
  9. Poyner
  10. Poyners
  11. Poynings

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: poynant (page history and authors); poignant (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “poynant.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/poynant. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.