cant¹ / kant/ • n. 1. hypocritical and sanctimonious talk, typically of a moral, religious, or political nature.2. [as adj.] denoting a phrase or catchword temporarily current or in fashion: they are misrepresented as, in the cant word of our day, uncaring. ∎  language peculiar to a specified group or profession and regarded with disparagement: thieves' cant.• v. [intr.] dated talk hypocritically and sanctimoniously about something: if they'd stop canting about “honest work,” they might get somewhere.cant² • v. [tr.] cause (something) to be in a slanting or oblique position; tilt: he canted his head to look at the screen. ∎  [intr.] take or have a slanting position: mismatched slate roofs canted at all angles.• n. 1. [in sing.] a slope or tilt: the outward cant of the curving walls.2. a wedge-shaped block of wood, esp. one remaining after the better-quality pieces have been cut off.

CANT. The JARGON of a class, group, or profession, often used to exclude or mislead others: a teenage gang member in Los Angeles saying that he was in his hoopty around dimday when some mud duck with a trey-eight tried to take him out of the box (he was in his car around dusk when a woman armed with a .38 calibre pistol tried to shoot him). Cant is a temporary form of language that changes quickly; when outsiders pick some of it up, the group evolves new usages. Expressions often move into the general language; cant terms that are now general SLANG include moniker name, bilk to swindle, beef a complaint/to complain, and hit kill. See ARGOT, SHELTA.

cant 2 (sl.) speak, talk, esp. in the whining fashion of beggars XVI; use the particular jargon of a class or set, affect religious or pietistic phraseology XVII. prob. — L. cantāre sing (see CHANT), which was applied contemptuously as early as XII to the singing in church services and perh. later to the speech of religious mendicants.
Hence cant sb. XVII.

cant The section of a coppiced woodland that is cut in a particular year in the rotation. See also COUPE and HAG.

cant The section of a coppiced woodland that is cut in a particular year in the rotation. See also coupe and hag.