[This and its accompanying vb. presumably represent L. cant-us singing, song, chant (Pr. and NFr. cant, Fr. chant), cantā-re NFr. canter) to sing, chant; but the details of the derivation and development of sense are unknown.
Cantare and its Romanic representatives were used contemptuously in reference to the church services as early as 1183, when according to Rigord (c. 1200) Gest Philip. August. (1818), 11, the Cotarelli of the Bourges country ‘sacerdotes et viros religiosos captos secum ducentes, et irrisoriè cantores ipsos vocantes, in ipsis tormentis subsannando dicebant: Cantate nobis, cantores, cantate; et confestim dabant eis alapas, vel cum grossis virgis turpiter cædebant.’ So far as the evidence shows, the vb. appears in Eng. first applied to the tones and language of beggars, ‘the canting crew’: this, which according to Harman was introduced c. 1540, may have come down from the religious mendicants; or the word may have been actually made from Lat. or Romanic in the rogues’ jargon of the time. The subsequent development assumed in the arrangement of the verb is quite natural, though not actually established. Some have however conjectured that cant is the Irish and Gaelic cainnt ‘language.’ And as early as 1711 the word was asserted to be derived from the name of Andrew Cant or his son Alexander Cant, Presbyterian ministers of the 17th c. This perhaps means that the surname of the two Cants was occasionally associated derisively with canting. The arrangement of the sb. here is tentative, and founded mainly on that of the vb., which appears on the whole earlier.]
† I. (Sporadic uses, from L. cantus or its representatives; not directly related to II.)
† 1. Singing, musical sound. Cant organ: app. a technical term in music. Obs.
1501. Douglas, Pal. Hon., I. xlii. Fabourdoun, pricksang, discant, countering, Cant organe, figuratioun, and gemmell.
1704. Swift, T. Tub, Wks. 1760, I. 100. Cant and vision are to the ear and the eye the same that tickling is to the touch.
1708. Brit. Apollo, No. 79. 2/2. That shrill Cant of the Grasshoppers.
† 2. Accent, intonation, tone. Obs.
1663. Aron-bimn., 110. It depends not upon the cant and tone, or the wording of the Minister.
1763. Ann. Reg., 307/2. If these lines want that sober cant which is necessary to an epitaph.
II. The speech or phraseology of beggars, etc., and senses connected therewith.
3. ‘A whining manner of speaking, esp. of beggars’; a whine.
1640. Cleveland, in Wilkins, Polit. Ballads, I. 28. By lies and cants, [they] Would trick us to believe ’em saints.
1705. Hickeringill, Priest-cr., IV. (1721), 227. With a Cant like a Gypsie, a Whine like a beaten Spaniel.
4. The peculiar language or jargon of a class:
a. The secret language or jargon used by gipsies, thieves, professional beggars, etc.; transf. any jargon used for the purpose of secrecy.
1706. in Phillips.
1707. J. Stevens, trans. Quevedo’s Com. Wks. (1709), 226. They talk’d to one another in Cant.
1715. Kersey, Cant, Gibberish, Pedler’s French.
a. 1734. North, Exam., II. v. ¶ 110. 383. To avoid being understood by the Servants, they framed a Cant, and called the Design of a general Rising the Lease and Release.
1865. Dickens, Mut. Fr., xvi. 127. The ring of the cant.
b. The special phraseology of a particular class of persons, or belonging to a particular subject; professional or technical jargon. (Always depreciative or contemptuous.)
1684. T. Burnet, Th. Earth, I. 214. There is heat and moisture in the body, & you may call the one ‘radical’ and the other ‘innate’ if you please; this is but a sort of cant.
1712. Addison, Spect., No. 421, ¶ 3. In the Cant of particular Trades and Employments.
1750. Johnson, Rambl., No. 128, ¶ 4. Every class of society has its cant of lamentation, which is understood by none but themselves.
1839. Dickens, Nich. Nick., xxxiv. All love—bah! that I should use the cant of boys and girls—is fleeting enough.
1841–4. Emerson, Ess., xiii. Poet, Wks. (Bohn), I. 156. Criticism is infested with a cant of materialism.
1861. Holland, Less. Life, viii. 119. Repeating the cant of their sect and the cant of their schools.
† c. The peculiar phraseology of a religious sect or class. (Cf. 5 b.) Obs.
1681. Dryden, Abs. & Achit., 521. Hot Levites … Resum’d their cant, and with a zealous cry Pursued their old beloved theocracy.
1696. C. Leslie, Snake in Grass (1698), Introd. 46. Really to understand the Quaker-Cant is learning a new Language.
1709. Sacheverell, Serm., 15 Aug., 15. Diabolical Inspiration, and Non-sensical Cant.
1711. Spect., No. 147, ¶ 3. Cant is by some people derived from one Andrew Cant who, they say, was a Presbyterian minister … who by exercise & use had obtained the Faculty, alias Gift, of talking in the Pulpit in such a dialect, that it’s said he was understood by none but his own Congregation, and not by all of them.
d. Provincial dialect; vulgar slang.
1802. Mar. Edgeworth, Irish Bulls (1832), 226. The cant of Suffolk, the vulgarisms of Shropshire.
1852. Gladstone, Glean., IV. lxxxii. 122. The coarse reproduction of that unmitigated cant or slang.
e. attrib.
1727. Swift, Let. Eng. Tongue, Wks. 1755, II. I. 185. To introduce and multiply cant words is the most ruinous corruption in any language.
1824. W. Irving, T. Trav., I. 273. Slang talk and cant jokes.
1841. Borrow, Zincali (1843), II. 150. The first Vocabulary of the ‘Cant Language’ … appeared in the year 1680 appended to the life of ‘The English Rogue.’
5. A form of words, a phrase.
† a. A set form of words repeated perfunctorily or mechanically. Obs.
1681. Sejanus, in Bagford Ballads (1878), 758, note. A young Scribe is copying out a Cant, Next morn for to be spoke in Parliament.
1704. Steele, Lying Lover, I. i. 7. Sure … you talk by Memory, a Form or Cant which you mistake for something that’s gallant.
1712. Addison, Spect., No. 291, ¶ 6. With a certain cant of words.
b. A pet phrase, a trick of words; esp. a stock phrase that is much affected at the time, or is repeated as a matter of habit or form. (Formerly with a and plural.) arch.
1681. Country-man’s Compl. & Advice to King. Gods! to be twice cajol’d by cants and looks.
1691. Wood, Ath. Oxon., II./450. Enamour’d with his obstreporousness and undecent cants.
1692. Bentley, Boyle Lect., 200. That ordinary cant of illiterate … atheists, the fortuitous or casual concourse of atoms.
1710. Hearne, Collect. (1886), II. 365. The late happy Revolution, (so he calls it, according to the common Cant).
1769. Junius Lett., xxvi. 119, note. Measures, and not men, is the common cant of affected moderation.
1798. Jane Austen, Northang. Abb. (1833), I. v. 22. ‘It is really very well for a novel.’ Such is the common cant.
c. attrib.
1712. Addison, Spect., No. 530, ¶ 3. Enlivened with little cant-phrases.
1753. Stewart’s Trial, App. 130. It was a cant word through the country, That the tenants might sit, since the worst of it would be paying the violent profits.
1774. Gouv. Morris, in Sparks, Life & Writ. (1832), I. 23. The belwethers jingled merrily, and roared out liberty, and property, and religion, and a multitude of cant terms.
1790. Paley, Horæ Paul. (1849), 396. There is such a thing as a peculiar word or phrase cleaving, as it were, to the memory of a writer or speaker and presenting itself to his utterance at every turn. When we observe this we call it a cant word or a cant phrase.
1855. Prescott, Philip II. (1857), I. v. 79. To borrow a cant phrase of the day, like ‘a fixed fact.’
1868. Helps, Realmah, xvii. (1876), 465. He … can—to use the cant phrase—afford to support the dignity of the peerage.
6. As a kind of phraseology:
a. Phraseology taken up and used for fashion’s sake, without being a genuine expression of sentiment; canting language.
1710. Berkeley, Princ. Hum. Knowl., § 87. All this sceptical cant follows from our supposing [etc.].
1783. Johnson, in Boswell, 15 May. My dear friend, clear your mind of cant … you may talk in this manner; it is a mode of talking in society; but don’t think foolishly.
1809. Syd. Smith, Wks. (1867), I. 174. The pernicious cant of indiscriminate loyalty.
1870. Lowell, Study Wind., 157. Enthusiasm, once cold, can never be warmed over into anything better than cant.
1875. Smiles, Thrift, ii. 20. In fact there is no greater cant than can’t.
1883. J. Parker, Tyne Chylde, 320. There is a cant of infidelity as certainly as there is a cant of belief.
b. esp. Affected or unreal use of religious or pietistic phraseology; language (or action) implying the pretended assumption of goodness or piety.
1709. Strype, Ann. Ref., I. lv. 609. I set down this letter at large, that men may see the cant of these men.
1716. Addison, Free-holder, No. 37, ¶ 2 (1751), 218 (J.). That opposite Extreme of Cant and Hypocrisy, which had taken possession of the People’s Minds in the times of the great Rebellion.
1789. Mrs. Piozzi, Journ. France, I. 256. Hypocritical manners, or what we so emphatically call cant.
1849. Robertson, Serm., Ser. I. x. (1866), 182. Religious phraseology passes into cant.
1875. Hamerton, Intell. Life, VI. iii. 211. He had a horror of cant, which … gave him a repulsion for all outward show of religious observances.
1879. Froude, Cæsar, i. 6. The whole spiritual atmosphere was saturated with cant.
c. attrib.
1747. Carte, Hist. Eng., I. 601. To make up what was wanting in the justice of their cause, and in the weight of their arguments, by a cant and sophistical way of expression.
7. One who uses religious phrases unreally.
1725. New Cant. Dict., Cant, an Hypocrite, a Dissembler, a double-tongu’d, whining Person.
1824. Mrs. Cameron, Pink Tippet, III. 16. Lest she should be called a cant.
1873. Adv. Protestant, 132. He was not a cant, but really felt what he said.
