CANT

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does cant mean? 

• CANT (noun)
  The noun CANT has 5 senses:

1. stock phrases that have become nonsense through endless repetition

2. a slope in the turn of a road or track; the outside is higher than the inside in order to reduce the effects of centrifugal force

3. a characteristic language of a particular group (as among thieves)

4. insincere talk about religion or morals

5. two surfaces meeting at an angle different from 90 degrees

  Familiarity information: CANT used as a noun is common.

• CANT (verb)
  The verb CANT has 1 sense:

1. heel over

  Familiarity information: CANT used as a verb is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• CANT (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Stock phrases that have become nonsense through endless repetition

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Synonyms:

buzzword; cant

Hypernyms ("cant" is a kind of...):

bunk; hokum; meaninglessness; nonsense; nonsensicality (a message that seems to convey no meaning)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A slope in the turn of a road or track; the outside is higher than the inside in order to reduce the effects of centrifugal force

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural objects (not man-made)

Synonyms:

bank; camber; cant

Hypernyms ("cant" is a kind of...):

incline; side; slope (an elevated geological formation)

Derivation:

cant (heel over)

Sense 3

Meaning:

A characteristic language of a particular group (as among thieves)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Synonyms:

argot; cant; jargon; lingo; patois; slang; vernacular

Context example:

they don't speak our lingo

Hypernyms ("cant" is a kind of...):

non-standard speech (speech that differs from the usual accepted, easily recognizable speech of native adult members of a speech community)

Domain member usage:

tripper ((slang) someone who has taken a psychedelic drug and is undergoing hallucinations)

airhead (a flighty scatterbrained simpleton)

juice (energetic vitality)

skinful (a quantity of alcoholic drink sufficient to make you drunk)

key (a kilogram of a narcotic drug)

big bucks; big money; bundle; megabucks; pile (a large sum of money (especially as pay or profit))

juice (electric current)

wog ((offensive British slang) term used by the British to refer to people of color from Africa or Asia)

Jap; Nip ((offensive slang) offensive term for a person of Japanese descent)

bad egg ((old-fashioned slang) a bad person)

boffin ((British slang) a scientist or technician engaged in military research)

suit ((slang) a businessman dressed in a business suit)

squeeze ((slang) a person's girlfriend or boyfriend)

schlockmeister; shlockmeister ((slang) a merchant who deals in shoddy or inferior merchandise)

out-and-outer (someone who is excellent at something)

old man ((slang) boss)

guvnor ((British slang) boss)

good egg ((old-fashioned slang) a good person)

butch; dike; dyke ((slang) offensive term for a lesbian who is noticeably masculine)

can-do (marked by a willingness to tackle a job and get it done)

drop-dead (extremely)

clean; plum; plumb (completely; used as intensifiers)

slam-bang (violent and sudden and noisy)

pint-size; pint-sized; runty; sawed-off; sawn-off (well below average height)

bolshy; stroppy (obstreperous)

mean (excellent)

some (remarkable)

grotty (very unpleasant or offensive)

butch ((of male or female homosexuals) characterized by stereotypically male traits or appearance)

uncool ((spoken slang) unfashionable and boring)

freaky (strange and somewhat frightening)

the shits; the trots (obscene terms for diarrhea)

besotted; blind drunk; blotto; cockeyed; crocked; fuddled; loaded; pie-eyed; pissed; pixilated; plastered; slopped; sloshed; smashed; soaked; soused; sozzled; squiffy; stiff; tight; wet (very drunk)

square; straight (rigidly conventional or old-fashioned)

bunk off; play hooky (play truant from work or school)

chuck; ditch (throw away)

hoof (dance in a professional capacity)

feel (pass one's hands over the sexual organs of)

buy it; pip out (be killed or die)

give (occur)

bitch (an unpleasant difficulty)

heebie-jeebies; jitters; screaming meemies (extreme nervousness)

square-bashing (drill on a barracks square)

soup-strainer; toothbrush (slang for a mustache)

legs (staying power)

cert (an absolute certainty)

dreck; schlock; shlock (merchandise that is shoddy or inferior)

nick ((British slang) a prison)

Mickey Finn (slang term for knockout drops)

gat; rod (a gangster's pistol)

deck (street name for a packet of illegal drugs)

caff (informal British term for a cafe)

shakedown (a very thorough search of a person or a place)

spic; spick; spik ((ethnic slur) offensive term for persons of Latin American descent)

dekko (British slang for a look)

hand job; jacking off; jerking off; wank (slang for masturbation)

blowjob; cock sucking (slang for fellatio)

ass; fuck; fucking; nookie; nooky; piece of ass; piece of tail; roll in the hay; screw; screwing; shag; shtup (slang for sexual intercourse)

power trip ((slang) a self-aggrandizing action undertaken simply for the pleasure of exercising control over other people)

shakedown (extortion of money (as by blackmail))

heist; rip-off (the act of stealing)

swiz (British slang for a swindle)

bite (a portion removed from the whole)

bay window; corporation; pot; potbelly; tummy (slang for a paunch)

Boche; Hun; Jerry; Kraut; Krauthead (offensive term for a person of German descent)

dago; ginzo; greaseball; Guinea; wop ((ethnic slur) offensive term for a person of Italian descent)

Chinaman; chink ((ethnic slur) offensive term for a person of Chinese descent)

hymie; kike; sheeny; yid ((ethnic slur) offensive term for a Jew)

Injun; red man; Redskin ((slang) offensive term for Native Americans)

honkey; honkie; honky; whitey ((slang) offensive names for a White man)

poor white trash; white trash ((slang) an offensive term for White people who are impoverished)

'hood; hood ((slang) a neighborhood)

nosh-up (a large satisfying meal)

burnup (a high-speed motorcycle race on a public road)

bun-fight; bunfight ((Briticism) a grand formal party on an important occasion)

dibs (a claim of rights)

skin flick (a pornographic movie)

applesauce; codswallop; folderol; rubbish; trash; tripe; trumpery; wish-wash (nonsensical talk or writing)

baloney; bilgewater; boloney; bosh; drool; humbug; taradiddle; tarradiddle; tommyrot; tosh; twaddle (pretentious or silly talk or writing)

hooey; poppycock; stuff; stuff and nonsense (senseless talk)

corker ((dated slang) a remarkable or excellent thing or person)

niff; pong (an unpleasant smell)

arse; arsehole; asshole; bunghole (vulgar slang for anus)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "cant"):

street name (slang for something (especially for an illegal drug))

rhyming slang (slang that replaces words with rhyming words or expressions and then typically omits the rhyming component)

Sense 4

Meaning:

Insincere talk about religion or morals

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Synonyms:

cant; pious platitude

Hypernyms ("cant" is a kind of...):

talk; talking (an exchange of ideas via conversation)

Sense 5

Meaning:

Two surfaces meeting at an angle different from 90 degrees

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Synonyms:

bevel; cant; chamfer

Hypernyms ("cant" is a kind of...):

edge (a sharp side formed by the intersection of two surfaces of an object)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "cant"):

splay (an outward bevel around a door or window that makes it seem larger)

Derivation:

cant (heel over)

• CANT (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they cant    ... he / she / it cants   
Past simple: canted   
Past participle: canted   
-ing form: canting   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Heel over

Classified under:

Verbs of walking, flying, swimming

Synonyms:

cant; cant over; pitch; slant; tilt

Context example:

The ceiling is slanting

Hypernyms (to "cant" is one way to...):

move (move so as to change position, perform a nontranslational motion)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "cant"):

cock (tilt or slant to one side)

Sentence frames:

Something ----s
Somebody ----s something

Derivation:

cant (two surfaces meeting at an angle different from 90 degrees)

cant (a slope in the turn of a road or track; the outside is higher than the inside in order to reduce the effects of centrifugal force)

 Context examples 

It was the first time it had ever occurred to me, that this detestable cant of false humility might have originated out of the Heep family.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

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.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

Hence it follows of necessity, that vast numbers of our people are compelled to seek their livelihood by begging, robbing, stealing, cheating, pimping, flattering, suborning, forswearing, forging, gaming, lying, fawning, hectoring, voting, scribbling, star-gazing, poisoning, whoring, canting, libelling, freethinking, and the like occupations: every one of which terms I was at much pains to make him understand.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

Her form, though not so correct as her sister's, in having the advantage of height, was more striking; and her face was so lovely, that when in the common cant of praise, she was called a beautiful girl, truth was less violently outraged than usually happens.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

Three or four Prices might have been swept away, any or all except Fanny and William, and Lady Bertram would have thought little about it; or perhaps might have caught from Mrs. Norris's lips the cant of its being a very happy thing and a great blessing to their poor dear sister Price to have them so well provided for.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

Such is the common cant.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

This, par parenthese, will be thought cool language by persons who entertain solemn doctrines about the angelic nature of children, and the duty of those charged with their education to conceive for them an idolatrous devotion: but I am not writing to flatter parental egotism, to echo cant, or prop up humbug; I am merely telling the truth.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Of course, when the schooner canted over, the boom had swung out-board, and the cap of it and a foot or two of sail hung even under water.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

It is likewise to be observed, that this society has a peculiar cant and jargon of their own, that no other mortal can understand, and wherein all their laws are written, which they take special care to multiply; whereby they have wholly confounded the very essence of truth and falsehood, of right and wrong; so that it will take thirty years to decide, whether the field left me by my ancestors for six generations belongs to me, or to a stranger three hundred miles off.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

At every jump too, Hands appeared still more to sink into himself and settle down upon the deck, his feet sliding ever the farther out, and the whole body canting towards the stern, so that his face became, little by little, hid from me; and at last I could see nothing beyond his ear and the frayed ringlet of one whisker.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)