QUITE A

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does quite a mean? 

• QUITE A (adverb)
  The adverb QUITE A has 1 sense:

1. of an unusually noticeable or exceptional or remarkable kind (not used with a negative)

  Familiarity information: QUITE A used as an adverb is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• QUITE A (adverb)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Of an unusually noticeable or exceptional or remarkable kind (not used with a negative)

Synonyms:

quite; quite a; quite an

Context example:

we've had quite an afternoon

 Context examples 

He was still holding me by the wrist, and at that he give it quite a wring.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

You have quite a joyful month ahead.

(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)

“Traddles,” returned Mr. Waterbrook, “is a young man reading for the bar. Yes. He is quite a good fellow—nobody's enemy but his own.”

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Holmes laughed. “It is quite a pretty little problem,” said he.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

We were brought up together; there was not quite a year difference in our ages.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

As Louisa improved, he had improved, and he was now quite a different creature from what he had been the first week.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

We did a vast deal in that way at the Parsonage: we made it quite a different place from what it was when we first had it.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

Which was not quite a correct statement, by the way.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

He looked quite a gentleman, and I believe he was your father's brother.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

It is group of organisms that although differing quite a bit among themselves still have a large degree of characteristics in common.

(Order, NCI Thesaurus)