Also 5–8 kant. [Found c. 1400; rare before 1600. Words identical in form and corresponding in sense are found in many languages, Teutonic, Slavonic, Romanic, Celtic. Cf. Du. kant, MDu. cant, border, side, brink, edge, corner, MLG. kant (masc.) point, creek, border, also kante (fem.) side, edge, whence mod.G. kante edge, corner, border, brim, margin; also Du. and Ger. kante point-lace. (There is no trace of the word in the older stages of Teutonic.) Also OF. cant and mod.Norman cant, Walloon can side, Sp., Pg., It. canto edge, corner, side, med.L. cantus corner, side; with which some compare L. canthus, Gr. κανθός corner of the eye, and L. canthus tire (? felloe) of a wheel, according to Quintilian a ‘barbarous’ word. The Welsh cant edge of the circle, Breton kañt circle, circumference, which were thought by Diez to represent an original Celtic word, are held by Diefenbach and Thurneysen not to be native; so that at present we cannot go beyond the Romanic canto, and its possible identity with L. canthus. The Teutonic words were probably from Romanic. It is not clear whether the Eng. word was adopted from OF. or from LG., or, in different senses, from both.
I. Original sb. senses.
† 1. (probably) Edge, border, brink. Obs.
c. 1375. ? Barbour, St. Lucas, 69, 70. Quhene he had drywyne wel oure Þe kanttis of sewynty ȝeris & foure.
c. 1400. Melayne, 1495. Under the cante of a hille Oure Britons beldis & bydis stille.
† 2. A nook, corner in a building; a niche. Obs.
[1481–90. Howard Househ. Bks. (1841), 400. Item, for ij. panchons at the garden gate, with kant ther above viijd.]
1603. B. Jonson, Jas. I’s Entert., Wks. (1838), 530/1. Irene, or Peace; she was placed aloft in a cant, her attire white, semined with stars.
1604. Dekker, King’s Entert., 297. Directly under her in a Cant by her selfe, Fame stood upright.
1605. Verstegan, Dec. Intell., v. 150. A nooke or corner being in our ancient language called a kant or cantell.
1624. Webster, Mon. Honour., Wks. (1857), 369. In several cants beneath sits, first Magistracy … next Liberality.
† 3. A corner or angle of a polygon. Obs.
1611. Cotgr., s.v. Pent, La figure hexagone à six pents, hauing six Cants.
1688. R. Holme, Armoury, III. xiii. § 42. A Tower or Steeple of six Cants or six square … Some term it an Hexagon or Octagon Tower, that is six or eight cornered; but Master Masons generally term it six or eight Cants or Corners.
1876. Gwilt, Archit., Gloss., Cant, an external angle or quoin of a building.
† b. ? A corner piece; a triangular piece. Obs.
1688. R. Holme, Armoury, II. 118/2. Garden, part to be divided into Beds and them again to be cast into Ovals, Squares, Cants, Frets, Borders or Knots.
4. One of the side-pieces in the head of a cask; also cant-piece. (So in Welsh). Cf. cantle-piece (CANTLE sb. 8).
1611. Cotgr., Panneau de doile, a cant pane or peece.
1848. J. A. Carlyle, trans. Dante’s Inferno, xxviii. 22. Even a cask, through loss of middle-piece or cant [per mezzul perdere o lulla] yawns not so wide as one I saw.
5. The oblique line or surface that cants or cuts off the corner of a square or cube; an oblique face of a polygon, a crystal, etc.; an inclined or slanting face of a bank, or the like.
1840. Fosbroke, Encycl. Antiq., 148. Cants (parts which have inclined faces).
1850. Gloss. Terms in Archit. (ed. 5), 107. Cant, a term in common use among carpenters to express the cutting off the angle of a square.
1874. Knight, Mech. Dict., Cant, an angle, a bevel, a chamfer, a slope, an arris, a hip, a ridge.
1875. Brande & Cox, Dict. Science, I. 367. Cant, a term used in Architecture to express the sides of a polygon turned from the spectator.
1877. E. Peacock, N.-W. Linc. Gloss., Cant, part of a buttress wall or other building which is sloped off.
1880. Standard, 20 May, 3/3. Along the ‘cant’ of the ice the sealer coasts.
6. A squared log. U.S. Cf. CANTER sb.1 2.
1877. Lumberman’s Gaz., 24 May. A cant or square-edged timber. Ibid. (1879), 5 Nov. The cheapest and most effective means yet devised for holding the cant in place.
7. Naut. A piece of wood laid upon the deck of a vessel to support the bulkheads, etc. Cf. CANT-PIECE, etc., in 12.
1794. Rigging & Seamanship, II. 286. Fir cants nailed on the limber-strakes.
1865. Public Opinion, 5 Aug., 149/2. Washing Arrangements.… Suitable places [on board ship] are to be set apart for the purpose, fitted with cants, to prevent the escape of water, and screens, so arranged as to roll up when not in use.
II. from CANT v.
8. A toss, pitch, or throw, which overturns, casts down, etc.
1736. J. Lewis, Hist. Thanet, Gloss., Cant … likewise signifies a cast or throw; ‘I gave him a cant.’
1755. Mem. Capt. P. Drake, II. xiv. 244. To give me such a cant, as I never had before nor since, which was the whole Length of the Coffee-room; he pitched me on my Head and Shoulders, under a large Table, at the further End.
9. A sudden movement that tends to, or results in, tilting up or turning over.
1806. A. Duncan, Nelson, 308. The carronade … took a cant from a roll of the ship.
1865. Carlyle, Fredk. Gt., XII. viii. Fortune’s wheel made suddenly a great cant.
10. A slope, a slanting or tilted position; a deflection from the perpendicular or horizontal line.
1847. Infantry Man. (1854), 20. Giving the piece a cant with the forefingers.
1873. Mrs. Whitney, Other Girls, xxxiv. The seat sloped with the sharp cant of the half-overturned vehicle.
1876. Davis, Polaris Exp., x. 245. A large tongue of ice below the water was forced under the bows of the vessel, raising her … and with the help of the wind giving her a cant.
b. An inclination.
1881. Daily Tel., 28 Jan., 1/3. The helm had been lashed with a small cant to leeward.
11. Whale-fishing. (See quot.)
1867. Smyth, Sailor’s Word-bk., Cant, a cut made in a whale between the neck and the fins, to which the cant purchase is made fast, for turning the animal round in the operation of flensing.
III. Attributively and in combination.
12. Combs. with the sb. (or stem of the vb.) with the general sense of ‘having canted corners or sides, on the slant, sloping, in a position diverging from the perpendicular or straight line,’ as in cant-buttress, -floor, -frame, -piece, -riband; cant-board, a sloping board; in Carriage building, a board serving to show the plan of the side of a carriage; cant-body, Naut. (see quot.); † cant-ceiling, a ceiling that slants to meet the wall, as in attics, etc., apparently now corrupted into CAMP-CEILING; cant-mo(u)lding, -riband, -timber, -window (see quots.).
1759. Smeaton, in Phil. Trans., LI. 103. A *kant-board, for throwing the water more directly down the opening … into the lower cistern.
1879. Carriage-building, in Cassell’s Techn. Educ., IV. 131. The cant-board which shows the side-cant. Ibid. The diagram showing the cant-board.
1867. Smyth, Sailor’s Word-bk., *Cant-body, an imaginary figure of that part of a ship’s body which forms the shape forward and aft, and whose planes make obtuse angles with the midship line of the ship.
1879. W. H. White, Ship-build., in Cassell’s Techn. Educ., IV. 190/1. In the cant-bodies the plan followed is almost identical with that sketched.
1663. in Cosin, Corr. (Surtees), II. 367. Two *cant buttresses of hewen aishler neately jointed.
1688. R. Holme, Armoury, III. xiii. § 88. He beareth … the like Tower with an Eve, or *Cant seileing Roofe.
c. 1850. Rudim. Navig. (Weale), 119. One or two *cantfloors are added.
1833. T. Richardson, Merc. Mar. Archit., 21. The only guides in drawing the *cant frames.
1869. Sir E. J. Reed, Shipbuild., viii. 151. The half-beams stand in the planes of the cant frames and are consequently nearly at right angles to the side.
1823. P. Nicholson, Pract. Build., 582. *Cant-moulding, a bevelled surface.
1876. Gwilt, Archit., Gloss., Cant-moulding, one with one or more bevelled, instead of curved, surfaces.
1794. Rigging & Seamanship, I. 4. *Cant-pieces are used in the angles of the fishes and side-trees.
c. 1850. Rudim. Navig. (Weale), 103. *Cant Ribands are those ribands that do not lie in a horizontal or level direction, or square from the middle line, but nearly square from the timbers, as the diagonal ribands.
1769. Falconer, Dict. Marine (1789), *Cant-timbers … those timbers which are situated at the two ends of a ship. They derive their name from being canted, or raised obliquely from the keel.
c. 1860. H. Stuart, Seaman’s Catech., 67. Those timbers which form the bow and stern of a ship are called ‘cant timbers.’
1663. Gerbier, Counsel, 13. Those Spectacle-like *cant Windows, which are of Glasse on all sides.
1877. E. Peacock, N. W. Linc. Gloss. (E. D. S.), Cant-window, a bay-window whose angles are bevelled off.
1881. Evans, Leicestersh. Gloss. (E. D. S.), Cant-window, a projecting window with angles, as distinguished from a ‘bow-window’ which projects in a curve.
13. From other senses: as in Whale-fishing (see 11). Cant-blocks, the large purchase blocks used by whalers to cant the whales round during the process of flensing. Cant-purchase is formed by a block suspended from the mainmast-head, and another block made fast to the cant cut in the whale. So CANT-DOG, CANT-HOOK, CANT-SPAR.
