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Synonyms

quant

1 American  
[kwahnt] / kwɑnt /

noun

  1. Business Slang. an expert in quantitative analysis.

Quant 2 American  
[kwahnt] / kwɑnt /

noun

  1. Dame Mary Barbara Mary Quant, 1930–2023, English fashion designer and entrepreneur: often credited as the principal designer of the miniskirt in the 1960s.

quant 1 British  
/ kwɒnt /

noun

  1. a long pole for propelling a boat, esp a punt, by pushing on the bottom of a river or lake

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

verb

  1. to propel (a boat) with a quant

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Quant 2 British  
/ kwɒnt /

noun

  1. Mary. born 1934, British fashion designer, whose Chelsea Look of miniskirts and geometrically patterned fabrics dominated London fashion in the 1960s

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
quant 3 British  
/ kwɒnt /

noun

  1. informal a highly paid computer specialist with a degree in a quantitative science, employed by a financial house to predict the future price movements of securities, commodities, currencies, etc

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Etymology

Origin of quant

An Americanism dating back to 1985–90; by clipping

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

Overdeck, a mathematician, and Siegel, a computer scientist, met while working at quant hedge-fund pioneer D.E.

From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 1, 2026

Recently, the Lazard team has been applying a “life cycle score” in its valuation analysis for companies, whereby its quant models value younger companies with more room to grow differently than older, more mature companies.

From Barron's • Mar. 4, 2026

The survey found it was endowments, foundations, and family offices that are seeking quant and funds that trade based on macroeconomic assessments.

From MarketWatch • Jan. 30, 2026

Instead of going to a hedge fund as a quant trader, she went to Oxford as a Rhodes scholar.

From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 4, 2025

“At the ratings agencies the corporate credit people are the least bad,” says a quant who engineered mortgage bonds for Morgan Stanley.

From "The Big Short" by Michael Lewis

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.