He had the look of a prince, but thecant of a fishmonger.
1836, Three discourses preached before the Congregational Society in Watertown,page 65
I am aware that the phrasefree inquiry has become too much acant 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.
Of all thecants which are canted in this canting world,—though thecant of hypocrites may be the worſt,—thecant of criticiſm is the moſt tormenting!
1903,Samuel Butler, chapter 46, inThe Way of All Flesh:
... 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 forcants 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 anycant as soon as he had come across another more nearly to his fancy ...
2004 October 14, Leslie Feinberg, “Anti-gay terror in Nazi Germany”, inWorkers World[1]:
The German population as a whole had been fed 12 years of Nazi propaganda, including demonizing and dehumanizingcant about homosexual men and women.
TheDoctor here, I will proceed with thelearned. / VVhen he diſcourſeth ofdiſſection, / Or any point ofAnatomy: that hee tells you, / OfVena caua, and ofvena porta, / TheMeſeraicks, and theMeſenterium. / VVhat does he elſe butcant?[…] / Does he notcant? VVho here does vnderſtand him?
1854, Robert Sanderson, “The case of the liturgy”, inThe Works of Robert Sanderson, D.D., Sometime Bishop of Lincoln[2], volume 5, page56:
[…]that uncouth affected garb of speech, orcanting language rather, if I may so call it
[I]f he proue not yet / The cunningſt, ranckeſt Rogue that euerCanted, / Ile neuer ſee man againe,[…]
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, atCharing-Cross,→OCLC,page145:
[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;[…]
1720,Jonathan Swift,A Proposal for the Use of Irish Manufacture:
[…]labouring with all their might for preventing thebishops from letting their revenues at a moderate half value[…] at the very instant, when they were every wherecanting their own land upon short leases, and sacrificing theiroldest tenants for a penny an acre advance.
Owing to thecant 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.
1830, The Edinburgh Encyclopedia, volume 3,page 621
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 suddencant, orlurch, 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.
A suddenthrust,push,kick, or otherimpulse, producing a bias or change of direction; also, thebias or turn so given.
to give a ball acant
(coopering) A segment forming a side piece in the head of acask.[4]
Cardinals followingcant employa(“and”) as a connecting word, which stands in contrast to ordinals aftercanfed, which usewedi'r(“past the, after the”), e.g.cant ac un(“one hundred and one”) butcyntaf wedi'r cant(“hundred-and-first”).
Cant (language) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia