In the late Ottoman period, Kuwaykat was named "Chiouwe chiateh" on the French map Pierre Jacotin made of the area during Napoleon's invasion of Egypt and Syria in 1799. In 1875 Victor Guérin visited, and found the village surrounded with gardens planted with fig and olive trees, and with an ancient well. He further noted that the village was mentioned in Crusader sources. In 1881 Kuwaykat was described by the PEF's "Survey of Western Palestine" as being built of stone and situated at the foot of hills. The roughly 300 Muslim residents cultivated olives. In 1887, an elementary school was built in the village. In addition, the village had a mosque and a shrine for the Druze religious leader, Shaykh Aby Muhammad al-Qurayshi.