15 Words With the Last Letter ‘Q’

It’s one of our language’s most basic rules: a Q in English is (almost) always followed by an U. English inherited its “qu” spelling from French and Latin, and used it as a handy replacement for an earlier Old English spelling convention, that spelled the “qu” sound with a C and a W. So the likes of Old English cwen, cwellan and cwic ultimately morphed into Modern English queen, quell, and quick, and we’ve been rolling out “qu” spellings across our language ever since. 

More recently, though, English has become so globalized, and our world has become so small, that our language has picked up ever more words that break this rule.

Scholars and philologists, for instance, have adopted a convention that uses a Q alone as a replacement for the Semitic letter qoph—which is why the likes of Qatar and faqir use a Q without an U. Rarer still, however, are a group of words that not only take a Q without a U, but use Q in final position with no letter after it at all. 

1. CINQ 
2. COQ 
3. FUNDUQ 
4. NASTALIQ 
5. PDQ 
6. PIBLOKTOQ 
7. POSSLQ 
8. QULLIQ 
9. RAFIQ 
10. SAMBUQ 
11. TALAQ 
12. TRANQ 
13. TZADDIQ 
14. UMIAQ 
15.  ZINDIQ 

CINQ 

The French word for the number five can be used in English—both spelled cinq and cinque—in the context of card and dice-throwing games. 

COQ 

Coq literally means a rooster in its native French (which is the same sense you’ll find it used in coq au vin). In English, though, the word has come to be used of an adornment of cockerel feathers used in a woman’s hat. 

FUNDUQ 

A funduq, or fonduk, is a kind of inn or lodging house that doubles as a storehouse or warehouse in some Mediterranean and Red Sea countries. 

NASTALIQ 

Borrowed into English from Persian (which is one of the languages it was traditionally used with), nastaliq is the name of a kind of sloping Arabic script, associated with poetic writings and manuscripts. 

PDQ 

An abbreviation of “pretty damned quick” that dates back to the late 19th century, you can use pdq to mean immediately or as soon as possible. 

PIBLOKTOQ 

Pibloktoq is an alternative form of piblokto—the name of a kind of hysteria-like condition observed among the Inuit. 

POSSLQ 

Although it’s technically an abbreviation, posslq—which is roughly pronounced “poss-el-cue”—has recently come to be treated as a word in its own right, spelled in lowercase, just like acronyms such as radar and sonar. Originally a demographic category, it stands for a “person of the opposite sex, sharing living quarters.”

QULLIQ 

Qulliq is an alternative spelling of kudlik, the name of a kind of Inuit soapstone oil lamp. 

RAFIQ 

Borrowed into English via 18th and 19th century travelogues and explorers’ memoirs, a rafiq is a travelling companion in Arabian countries, who works as both guide and translator. 

SAMBUQ 

A less common spelling of the word sambouk, or sambuk, a sambuq is a kind of Arabian sailing boat. 

TALAQ 

A term from Islamic law, talaq (which is also spelled talak) is a form of Muslim divorce in which the husband officially rejects his wife using the word “talaq” itself. 

TRANQ 

A word worth remembering the next time you play Scrabble, tranq is both an abbreviation of tranquilizer, and a byname for the sedative xylazine. 

TZADDIQ 

Tzaddiq is a word with several variant spellings, of which this is just one. The term is used both of the leader of a Hasidic Jewish community, and more loosely of a particularly righteous individual. 

UMIAQ 

Umiaq with a Q is an alternative spelling of umiak, which is the name of a kind of seal-skin canoe of the Arctic. 

 ZINDIQ 

A zindiq is a religious heretic or infidel in Islam. 

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