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''cant'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260127004310-00-⌔

cant - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Noun

cant (usually uncountable, plural cants)

• (countable) An argot, the jargon of a particular class or subgroup.
  • ✤ Synonyms: argot, jargon, slang
  • ✤ 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.¹
• (countable, uncountable) A private or secret language used by a religious sect, gang, or other group.
  • ✤ Synonyms: argot, jargon, slang
• A language spoken by some Irish Travellers; Shelta.
• (uncountable, derogatory) Empty, hypocritical talk.
  • ✤ He is too well grounded for all your philoſophical Cant to hurt.²
  • ✤ 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!³
  • ✤ … 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…⁴
  • ✤ The German population as a whole had been fed 12 years of Nazi propaganda, including demonizing and dehumanizing cant about homosexual men and women.⁵
• (uncountable) Whining speech, such as that used by beggars.
• (countable, heraldry) 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.
• (obsolete) A call for bidders at a public fair; an auction.
  • ✤ […] but numbers of these tenants or their descendants are now offering to sell their leases by cant,⁶

Verb

cant (third-person singular simple present cants, present participle canting, simple past and past participle canted)

• (intransitive) To speak with the jargon of a class or subgroup.
  • ✤ *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?**⁷
  • ✤ […] that uncouth affected garb of speech, or canting language rather, if I may so call it⁸
• (intransitive) To speak in set phrases.
• (intransitive) To talk, beg, or preach in a singsong or whining fashion, especially in a false or empty manner.
  • ✤ [I]f he proue not yet/The cunningſt, ranckeſt Rogue that euer Canted,/Ile neuer ſee man againe, […]⁹
  • ✤ [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; […]¹⁰
• (intransitive, heraldry) Of a blazon, to make a pun that references the bearer of a coat of arms.
• (obsolete) To sell by auction, or bid at an auction.
  • ✤ […] 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.¹¹

Noun

cant (plural cants)

• (obsolete) Side, edge, corner, niche.
  • ✤ under the cant of a hill
  • ✤ The firſt and principall perſon in the temple, vvas IRENE, or Peace; ſhe vvas placed aloft in a Cant, […]¹²
• Slope, the angle at which something is set.
  • ✤ Owing to the cant of the vessel, the masts hung far out over the water, and from my perch on the cross-trees I had nothing below me but the surface of the bay.¹³
• A corner (of a building).
  • ✤ Synonym: corner
• An outer or external angle.
• An inclination from a horizontal or vertical line; a slope or bevel; a tilt.¹⁴
  • ✤ Synonyms: bevel, slope, tilt
• A movement or throw that overturns something.
  • ✤ It is not only of great service in keeping the boat in her due position on the sea, but also in creating a tendency immediately to recover from any sudden cant, or lurch, from a heavy wave; and it is besides beneficial in diminishing the violence of beating against the sides of the vessel which she may go to relieve.¹⁵
• A sudden thrust, push, kick, or other impulse, producing a bias or change of direction; also, the bias or turn so given.
  • ✤ *to give a ball a cant *
• (coopering) A segment forming a side piece in the head of a cask.¹⁴
• A segment of the rim of a wooden cogwheel.¹⁴
• (nautical) A piece of wood laid upon the deck of a vessel to support the bulkheads.
• (lumbering) An unfinished log after preliminary cutting.

Verb

cant (third-person singular simple present cants, present participle canting, simple past and past participle canted)

• (transitive) To set (something) at an angle; to tilt.
  • ✤ to cant a cask
  • ✤ to cant a ship
  • ✤ Mirrors in the compartments have been canted out of the vertical plane to reduce reflections to the passengers when seated.¹⁶
• (transitive) To give a sudden turn or new direction to.
  • ✤ to cant round a stick of timber
  • ✤ to cant a football
• (transitive) To bevel an edge or corner.
• (transitive) To overturn so that the contents are emptied.

Verb

cant (third-person singular simple present cants, present participle canting, simple past and past participle canted)

• (transitive, obsolete) To divide or parcel out.

Noun

cant (plural cants)

• (dialectal, forestry) A parcel, a division.

Adjective

cant (not comparable)

• (UK, dialectal) Lively, lusty.

Pronunciation

• enPR: kănt, IPA: /kænt/
• Audio (US): 🔊
• Homophone: can’t (US), Homophone: Kant (in Anglicized pronunciation)
• Rhymes: -ænt

Etymology 1

From Latin cantō, probably via Old Northern French canter (“sing, tell”).¹⁷¹⁸ Doublet of chant.

Etymology 2

From Middle English cant (“edge, brink”), from Middle Dutch cant (“point, side, edge”) (Modern Dutch kant (“side, edge”)), ultimately of Celtic or Latin origin. Related to Medieval Latin cantus (“corner, side”), from Latin canthus.

Etymology 3

Unknown, but compare Provençal cantel (“corner, piece”) or Old Northern French cantel (“piece broken off”).¹⁹ The verb is attested from the 15th century,²⁰ and the noun from the 16th.¹⁹ See cantle, from which cant is possibly back-formed as if it contained the suffix -le.

Etymology 4

From Middle English cant, kaunt, presumably from Middle Low German ﹡kant, perhaps a slang word related to kant (“edge, rim”), from Medieval Latin canthus. Attested from the 13th or 14th century.²¹

Printed 2026-06-28.

(echo:: @ ⌗)

Footnotes

1. 1836, Three discourses preached before the Congregational Society in Watertown, page 65 ↩

2. 1749, Henry Fielding, “Containing Such Very Deep and Grave Matters, that Some Readers, Perhaps, May Not Relish It”, in The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, volume II, London: A[ndrew] Millar, […], →OCLC, book IV, page 23: ↩

3. 1761, [Laurence Sterne], chapter XII, in The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, volume III, London: […] R[obert] and J[ames] Dodsley […], →OCLC, page 60: ↩

4. 1903, Samuel Butler, chapter 46, in The Way of All Flesh: ↩

5. 2004 October 14, Leslie Feinberg, “Anti-gay terror in Nazi Germany”, in Workers World ‎${}^{[1]}$: ↩

6. 1729, Jonathan Swift, The Intelligencer, number 19: ↩

7. 1625 (first performance), Ben[jamin] Jonson, The Staple of Newes. […], London: […] I[ohn] B[eale] for Robert Allot […], published 1631, →OCLC, Act IV, scene iv, page 59: ↩

8. 1854, Robert Sanderson, “The case of the liturgy”, in The Works of Robert Sanderson, D.D., Sometime Bishop of Lincoln ‎${}^{[2]}$, volume 5, page 56: ↩

9. c. 1607–1611 (first performance), [Francis Beaumont], Iohn Fletcher, Cupids Revenge. […], London: […] Thomas Creede for Iosias Harison, […], published 1615, →OCLC, Act IV, signature H3, recto: ↩

10. 1765, Catherine Jemmat, The Memoirs of Mrs. Catherine Jemmat, Daughter of the Late Admiral Yeo, of Plymouth. Written by Herself, 2nd edition, volume I, London: Printed for the author, at Charing-Cross, →OCLC, page 145: ↩

11. 1720, Jonathan Swift, A Proposal for the Use of Irish Manufacture: ↩

12. 1604 March 25 (first performance; Gregorian calendar), B[en] Jon[son], “The Other at Temple Barre”, in B. Jon: His Part of King James His Royall and Magnificent Entertainement through His Honorable Cittie of London, Thurseday the 15. of March. 1603. […], London: […] V[alentine] S[immes] [and George Eld] for Edward Blount, published 1604, →OCLC, signature C2, recto: ↩

13. 1881–1882, Robert Louis Stevenson, “‘Pieces of Eight’”, in Treasure Island, London; Paris: Cassell & Company, published 14 November 1883, →OCLC, part V (My Sea Adventure), page 218: ↩

14. Edward H[enry] Knight (1877), “Cant”, in Knight’s American Mechanical Dictionary. […], volumes I (A–GAS), New York, N.Y.: Hurd and Houghton […], →OCLC. ↩ ↩² ↩³

15. 1830, The Edinburgh Encyclopedia, volume 3, page 621 ↩

16. 1979 August, Graham Burtenshaw, Michael S. Welch, “O.V.S. Bulleid’s SR loco-hauled coaches - 1”, in Railway World, page 396: ↩

17. Tom McArthur (1992), The Oxford Companion to the English Language, Oxford University Press, →ISBN ↩

18. Douglas Harper (2001–2026), “cant”, in Online Etymology Dictionary. ↩

19. cant, n.2, in James A. H. Murray et al., editors (1884–1928), “Cant”, in A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles (Oxford English Dictionary), London: Clarendon Press, →OCLC. ↩ ↩²

20. cant, v.1, in James A. H. Murray et al., editors (1884–1928), “Cant”, in A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles (Oxford English Dictionary), London: Clarendon Press, →OCLC. ↩

21. cant, adj., in James A. H. Murray et al., editors (1884–1928), “Cant”, in A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles (Oxford English Dictionary), London: Clarendon Press, →OCLC. ↩

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