I love the word “piquant,” but it’s one that I have learned only through reading. No one besides me uses it aloud, so I have always said it as “peek CON[T],” that is, in the French way, with the stress on the second syllable. This always sounded wrong, but I couldn’t for the life of me figure out the right pronunciation. Nor did I bother to look it up.

I ended up researching the correct pronunciation this morning. Turns out that the stress should be on the first syllable, both in English [“PEEK unt”] and French [“PEE con(t)”]. I will be pronouncing it “PEE con[t]” from now on.