[f. CANT v.3 + -ING2.] That cants or uses cant.
1. Speaking in a sing-song tone; whining.
1625. B. Jonson, Staple of N., I. v. An old Canting Beggar.
1748. Dodsley, Preceptor (1763), I. Introd. 37. Some have a singing or canting voice.
1841. Borrow, Zincali, I. iv. II. 278. The whining, canting tones peculiar to the gypsies.
2. Speaking the dialect of vagabonds, etc.; of the nature of, or belonging to, this dialect; see CANT sb.3 4 e. (Blending with vbl. sb. used attrib.)
1592. Groundwork Coney-catch., 99. The manner of their canting speech.
1620. Melton, Astrolog., 15. The Gypsies Canting Tongue.
1690. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew, Canting Crew, Beggers, Gypsies.
1710. Palmer, Proverbs, 197. A canting catch that common rogues make use of.
3. Of, pertaining to, or using the phraseology or jargon of a special class or subject.
1629. Massinger, Picture, II. ii. This is no canting language Taught in your academy.
a. 1659. Osborn, Observ. Turks, 341. The custom of Universitie requires … knowledge in the Arts so called, and a nimble mouthing of canting terms.
a. 1684. Roscommon, Ghost Old Ho. Commons (R.). While I … took for oracles that canting tribe [lawyers].
1704. J. Harris, Lex. Techn., Alkahest, one of the Canting Terms of the Alchymists.
4. Given to using religious or pietistic language formally or affectedly; hypocritical; of, or belonging to, such phrases or pretensions.
1663. Flagellum or O. Cromwell, 91. A letter … fraught with hypocritical canting expressions.
1703. De Foe, Short Way w. Dissenters, Misc. 420. You … have set up your Canting Synagogues at our Church-Doors.
1781. Cowper, Truth, 233. On holy ground Sometimes a canting hypocrite is found.
1864. Burton, Scot Abr., I. v. 249. There is scarcely an instance of a lord rector having been a clamorous quack or canting fanatic.
5. Her. Canting arms: = allusive arms (see ALLUSIVE 1 b). So canting heraldry, herald, coat.
1727–51. Chambers, Cycl., s.v. Arms, Canting Arms are those wherein the figures bear an allusion to the name of the family.
1814. Scott, Wav., xiv. Canting heraldry. Ibid. (1830), Monast., xxxiv. A device of a punning or canting herald.
1852. Miss Yonge, Cameos (1877), IV. iii. 38. Boleyn—or Bull-en—had the canting arms of a black bull’s head.
1864. Sir F. Palgrave, Norm. & Eng., III. 30. His descendants gave a very clever canting coat, a bridge crossing a conventional similitude of water.
Hence Cantingly adv., Cantingness.
1695. Whether Preserv. Protest. Relig. Motive of Revol., 4. Sycophant Divines … cantingly blow us into Triumphs of Thankfulness and Joy.
1740. Trial Mr. Whitfield’s Spirit, 40 (R.). In a suffering hour, as he [Whitfield] cantingly expresses it.
1840. T. Hook, in New Monthly Mag., LX. 429. To moralize, not tediously, boringly, or cantingly.
