cant
/kænt/
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: 4.35 in modern English
6
Scrabble Score
4
Letters
1
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A private or secret language used by a religious sect, gang, or other group.
Countable; Uncountable
Example Sentences
- "He had the look of a prince, but the cant of a fishmonger."
- "I am aware that the phrase free inquiry has become too much a cant 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."
- "He is too well grounded for all your philoſophical Cant to hurt."
- "Of all the cants which are canted in this canting world,—though the cant of hypocrites may be the worſt,—the cant of criticiſm is the moſt tormenting!"
- "... 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 for cants 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 any cant as soon as he had come across another more nearly to his fancy ..."
- "The German population as a whole had been fed 12 years of Nazi propaganda, including demonizing and dehumanizing cant about homosexual men and women."
Etymology
Origin
- Source language: Latin
Word Breakdown
Usage
Inflected Forms
Derived Forms
Phrases
Frequently Paired Words
Synonyms
Homonyms
can't (US)
Homophone: Kant (in Anglicized pronunciation)