CANT, v.t.

1. A toss; a throw, thrust or push with a sudden jerk; as, to give a ball a cant. [This is the literal sense.]
2. A whining, singing manner of speech; a quaint, affected mode of uttering words, either in conversation or preaching.
3. The whining speech of beggars, as in asking alms and making complaints of their distresses.
4. The peculiar words and phrases of professional men; phrases often repeated, or not well authorized.
5. Any barbarous jargon in speech.
6. Whining pretension to goodness. – Johnson.
7. Outcry, at a public sale of goods; a call for bidders at an auction. – Swift. This use of the word is precisely equivalent to auction, auctio, a hawking, a crying out, or in the vulgar dialect, a singing out; but I believe not in use in the United States.

A nich; a corner or retired place. – B. Jonson. Cant-timbers, in a ship, are those which are situated at the two ends. – Mar. Dict.

1. In popular usage, to turn about, or to turn over, by a sudden push or thrust; as, to cant over a pail or a cask. – Mar. Dict.
2. To toss; as, to cant a ball.
3. To speak with a whining voice, or an affected singing tone. [In this sense, it is usually intransitive.]
4. To sell by auction, or to bid a price at auction. – Swift.

1. A corner; angle; niche.
   
   
   [Obs.]

   The first and principal person in the temple was Irene, or Peace; she was placed aloft in a cant.
   B. Jonson.

2. To incline] to set at an angle; to tilt over; to tip upon the edge; as, to cant a cask; to cant a ship.
3. An affected, singsong mode of speaking.
4. Of the nature of cant; affected; vulgar.
   
   

   To introduce and multiply cant words in the most ruinous corruption in any language.
   Swift.

5. To speak in a whining voice, or an affected, singsong tone.
6. A call for bidders at a public sale; an auction.
   
   
   "To sell their leases by cant." Swift.
7. to sell by auction, or bid a price at a sale by auction.
   
   
   [Archaic] Swift.
8. A colloquial contraction for can not.
9. An outer or external angle.
10. To give a sudden turn or new direction to; as, to cant round a stick of timber; to cant a football.
11. The idioms and peculiarities of speech in any sect, class, or occupation.
    
    
    Goldsmith.

    The cant of any profession.
    Dryden.

12. To make whining pretensions to goodness; to talk with an affectation of religion, philanthropy, etc.; to practice hypocrisy; as, a canting fanatic.
    
    

    The rankest rogue that ever canted.
    Beau. *** Fl.

13. An inclination from a horizontal or vertical line; a slope or bevel; a titl.
    
    
    Totten.
14. To cut off an angle from, as from a square piece of timber, or from the head of a bolt.
15. The use of religious phraseology without understanding or sincerity; empty, solemn speech, implying what is not felt; hypocrisy.
    
    

    They shall hear no cant from me.
    F. W. Robertson

16. To use pretentious language, barbarous jargon, or technical terms] to talk with an affectation of learning.
    
    

    The doctor here,
    When he discourseth of dissection,
    Of vena cava and of vena porta,
    The meseræum and the mesentericum,
    What does he else but cant.
    B. Jonson

    That uncouth affected garb of speech, or canting language, if I may so call it.
    Bp. Sanderson.

17. A sudden thrust, push, kick, or other impulse, producing a bias or change of direction; also, the bias or turn so give; as, to give a ball a cant.
18. Vulgar jargon; slang; the secret language spoker by gipsies, thieves, tramps, or beggars.
19. A segment forming a side piece in the head of a cask.
    
    
    Knight.
20. A segment of he rim of a wooden cogwheel.
    
    
    Knight.
21. A piece of wood laid upon the deck of a vessel to support the bulkheads.
    
    

    Cant frames, Cant timbers (Naut.), timber at the two ends of a ship, rising obliquely from the keel.