Years ago the only meaning of "quant" was a punting pole used by those going up and down our canals. And it was a useful word in Scrabble.
The computer era spawned a number of new words and quant was one of them. It is short for quantitative analysis and any trader in the stock market is familiar with it and the quant network.
In bridge, the word QUANT is used on convention cards most often to explain the raise of 1NT or 2NT to 4NT, and here it means quantitative. The convention card police asked me to explain QUANT on my card in the Camrose, which seemed very petty. Partner is invited to go to six or to pass. A more refined version deals with what happens if partner then bids at the five-level or six-level in a suit. The former is best played as the response to simple Blackwood, to avoid bidding a slam off two aces. The latter is usually played as showing a good 5-card suit which might play better than no-trumps.
Shelley Shieff judged well on the following hand.
We had the simple auction 1NT-4NT-Pass and it transpired that 6NT needed the clubs to break 3-3, a 36% chance. Of course they did on this occasion and we scored well below average as many pairs just punted the slam. There was a certain irony that a quant was originally a punting pole. So, the operation was a success but the patient died. This very old expression stems from 1829 in the US:
29 August 1829, Savannah Georgian (Savannah, GA), pg. 3, col. 1:
A successful operation!—A late paper has the following paragraph: “Amputation at the hip joint. This operation was performed about two months ago at Odinburgh (Edinburgh) by Mr. Liston. The operation was successful, but the patient died!“
