Cant

subs. and verb.—[As regards derivation (whether noun or verb), to signify the speech, phraseology, or whine peculiar to thieves, beggars, and vagrants, authorities differ among and with themselves: the word occurs as early as 1540, and has long since achieved respectability. Grose was probably wrong in thinking it a corruption of chaunting, and it was certainly in use long prior to the two Scotch clergymen, Oliver and Andrew Cant, who are said to have preached with such a voice and such a manner as to give their name to all speaking of the same kind. A correspondent of Notes and Queries (2 S., vii., 158) suggests as a possible source the ordinary word mendicant (fr. Lat. mendico), but this is historically improbable, and the weight of evidence is in favour of the Latin cantus, singing or song, though it must be observed that neither the ancient nor the modern usage implies a mere sing-song, but rather the whine of one bent on deceit. There is a consciousness of hypocrisy be the canting in connection with religion, politics, begging, or anything else; and this principle is recognized in the attempt on the part of The Scots Observer to substitute BLEAT (subs. and verb) for the cant of æstheticism, the cant which deals with art in the language of sentiment and emotion. It has been further suggested that if the word meant singing, the A.S. cantere is a much more probable source of origin than the Latin canto or cantus; but there is an argument which seems to lend additional weight to the claim of the latter language: the French chanter, to sing, is sometimes used in the sense of CANT. In answer to a whining, lying tale (in reply indeed to anything incredible whether whining or brazen), a Frenchman would say, ‘Qu est ce que vous chantez là.’ Whatever the derivation, however, there is little doubt that Andrew Cant has little to do with it; indeed, Pennant in his Tour in Scotland, vol. I., p. 122, says that ‘Andrew canted no more than the rest of his brethren, for he lived in a whining age.’]

  Subs.—1.  The secret speech or jargon of the vagrant classes—gipsies, thieves, beggers, etc.; hence, contemptuously, the peculiar phraseology of a particular class or subject. Identical with THIEVES’ LATIN, ST. GILES’ GREEK, PEDDLAR’S FRENCH, etc. (q.v.); but for synonyms, see FLASH.

  1706.  In PHILLIPS.  [M.]

  1748.  T. DYCHE, A New General English Dictionary (5 ed.). CANT (s.): a barbarous broken sort of speech made use of by gypsies.

  1856.  C. READE, It Is Never Too Late to Mend, ch. xlv. All this not in English, but in thieves’ CANT.

  Here follow specimens of ancient and modern jargon. Further illustrations will be found in the canting songs in the Appendix.

  1567.  HARMAN, A Caveat or Warening for Common Cursetors (E.E.T.S., extra series, IX., 1869), p. 84–86. The vpright Cofe canteth to the Roge. VPRIGHTMAN.—Bene Lightmans to thy quarromes, in what lipken hast thou lypped in this darkemans, whether in a lybbege, or in the strummell? ROGE.—I couched a hogshead in a Skypper this darkemans. VPRIGHTMAN.—I towre the strummel trine vpon thy nabchet and Togman. ROGE.—I saye by the Salomon I will lage it of with a gage of benebouse; then cut to my nose watch. MAN.—Why, hast thou any lowre in thy bonge to bouse? ROGE.—But a flagge, a wyn, and a make, etc., etc., etc.

  1881.  New York Slang Dictionary. Oh! I’m fly. You mean jumping Jack, who was done last week for heaving a peter from a drag. But you talked of padding the hoof. Why, sure, Jack had a rattler and a prad?’ ‘Yes, but they were spotted by the harmans, and so we walked Spanish.’ ‘Was he nabbed on the scent?’ ‘No; his pal grew leaky and cackled.’ ‘Well, Bell, here’s the bingo—sluice your gob! But who was the cull that peached?’ ‘A slubber de gullion named Harry Long, who wanted to pass for an out-and-out cracksman, though he was merely a diver.’ ‘Whew! I know the kiddy like a copper, and saved him once from lumping the lighter by putting in buck. Why, he scarcely knows a jimmy from a round robin, and Jack deserved the tippet for making a law with him, as all coves of his kidney blow the gab. But how did you hare it to Romeville, Bell, for I suppose the jets cleaned you out?’ ‘I kidded a swell in a snoozing-ken, and shook him of his dummy and thimble.’ ‘Ah! Bell! you were always the blowen for a rum bing.’

  2.  (pugilistic).—a blow or toss. [In The Memoirs of Capt. Peter Drake, II., xiv., 244 (1755), occurs this passage, ‘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.’ Transition from the nautical sense of heeling over to that embodied in ‘CANT on the chops,’ is easy.] For synonyms, see BANG, DIG, and WIPE.

  3.  (tramps’).—Food. Also KANT, but cf., sense 4.

  1851–61.  H. MAYHEW, London Labour and the London Poor, vol. III., p. 415. The house was good for a CANT—that’s some food—bread or meat.

  1877.  BESANT and RICE, This Son of Vulcan, pt. I., ch. ix. The slavey’s been always good for a KANT, and the cove for a bob.

  4.  (tramps’).—A gift. [Possibly connected with CANT, sense 3, a share or portion.]

  1857.  SNOWDEN, Magistrates Assistant, 3 ed., p. 444. Gift of Clothes—CANT of Togs.

  Verb.—1.  To speak with the beggar’s whine.

  1567.  HARMAN, A Caveat or Warening for Common Cursetors (1869), 34. ‘It shall be lawefull for the to CANT—that is, to aske or begge—‘for thy living in al places.’

  1610.  ROWLANDS, Martin Mark-all, 17 [Hunterian Club’s Reprint, 1874]. According to the saying that you [thieves and cadgers] haue among your selues (If you can CANT, you will neuer worke) shewing that if they haue beene rogues so long, that they can CANT, they will neuer settle themselues to labour againe.

  2.  To speak the jargon of gipsies, beggars, and other vagrants.—See CANTING.

  1592.  GREENE, The Defence of Conny-catching, in Works, XI., 45. At these wordes Conny-catcher and Setter, I was driven into as great a maze, as if one had dropt out of the clowds, to heare a peasant CANT the wordes of art belonging to our trade.

  1609.  DEKKER, English Villainies (1638). And as these people are strange, both in names and in their conditions, so do they speake a language (proper only to themselves) called Canting, which is more strange. This word canting, seemes to be derived from the Latine Verbe (Canto) which signifies in English to sing, or to make a sounde with words, that is to say, to speake. And very aptly may Canting take its derivation, à cantando, from singing, because amongst these beggerly consorts that can play on no better instruments, the language of canting is a kinde of Musicke, and he that in such assemblies can CANT best, is counted the best musician.

  1639.  FORD, The Lady’s Trial, V., 1. One Can man a quean, and CANT, and pick a pocket.

  1748.  T. DYCHE, A New General English Dictionary (5 ed.). CANT (v.): to talk gibberish like gypsies.

  3.  To speak; to talk.

  1567.  HARMAN, A Caveat or Warening for Common Cursetors (1814), p. 66. To CANTE, to speake.

  1881.  New York Slang Dictionary. ‘On the trail.’ ‘But CANT us the cues. What was the job?’ ‘A pinch for an emperor’s slang. We touched his leather too, but it was very lathy.