cant
Part of speech: noun
verb
Morphological type: simple
Topics: government
heraldry
hobbies
lifestyle
monarchy
nobility
politics
Etymology: From Latin cantō, probably via Old Northern French canter (“sing, tell”). Doublet of chant.
Inflected forms:
form: cants
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: cants
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: canting
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: canted
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: canted
pos: verb
tags: past
Senses:
gloss: An argot, the jargon of a particular class or subgroup.
pos: noun
tags: countable
usually
examples: He had the look of a prince, but the cant of a fishmonger.
I am aware that the phrase free inquiry has become too much a cant phrase soiled by the handling of the ignorant and the reckless by those who fall into the mistake of supposing that religion has its root in the understanding and by those who can see just far enough to doubt and no further.
gloss: A private or secret language used by a religious sect, gang, or other group.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
usually
gloss: A language spoken by some Irish Travellers; Shelta.
pos: noun
tags: uncountable
usually
gloss: Empty, hypocritical talk.
pos: noun
tags: derogatory
uncountable
usually
examples: He is too well grounded for all your philoſophical Cant to hurt.
Of all the cants which are canted in this canting world,—though the cant of hypocrites may be the worſt,—the cant of criticiſm is the moſt tormenting!
... he knew very well that if they thought him clever they were being taken in, but it pleased him to have been able to take them in, and he tried to do so still further; he was therefore a good deal on the look-out for cants that he could catch and apply in season, and might have done himself some mischief thus if he had not been ready to throw over any cant as soon as he had come across another more nearly to his fancy ...
The German population as a whole had been fed 12 years of Nazi propaganda, including demonizing and dehumanizing cant about homosexual men and women.
gloss: Whining speech, such as that used by beggars.
pos: noun
tags: uncountable
usually
gloss: A blazon of a coat of arms that makes a pun upon the name (or, less often, some attribute or function) of the bearer, canting arms.
pos: noun
tags: countable
usually
gloss: A call for bidders at a public fair; an auction.
pos: noun
tags: obsolete
uncountable
usually
examples: […]but numbers of these tenants or their descendants are now offering to sell their leases by cant,
gloss: To speak with the jargon of a class or subgroup.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
examples: The Doctor here, I will proceed with the learned. / VVhen he diſcourſeth of diſſection, / Or any point of Anatomy: that hee tells you, / Of Vena caua, and of vena porta, / The Meſeraicks, and the Meſenterium. / VVhat does he elſe but cant? […] / Does he not cant? VVho here does vnderſtand him?
[…]that uncouth affected garb of speech, or canting language rather, if I may so call it
gloss: To speak in set phrases.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
gloss: To talk, beg, or preach in a singsong or whining fashion, especially in a false or empty manner.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
examples: [I]f he proue not yet / The cunningſt, ranckeſt Rogue that euer Canted, / Ile neuer ſee man againe, […]
[S]he was one of your ſoft ſpoken, canting, whining hypocrites, who with a truly jeſuitical art, could wreſt evil out of the moſt inoffenſive thought, word, look or action; […]
gloss: Of a blazon, to make a pun that references the bearer of a coat of arms.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
gloss: To sell by auction, or bid at an auction.
pos: verb
tags: obsolete
examples: […]labouring with all their might for preventing the bishops from letting their revenues at a moderate half value[…] at the very instant, when they were every where canting their own land upon short leases, and sacrificing their oldest tenants for a penny an acre advance.
Related words: jargon
sociolect
Derived words: cantish
outcant
Translations: