Can't

/kænt/ · noun

Meaning

(countable) An argot, the jargon of a particular class or subgroup..

Definitions by Sense

1. (countable) An argot, the jargon of a particular class or subgroup.
2. (countable, uncountable) A private or secret language used by a religious sect, gang, or other group.
3. A language spoken by some Irish Travellers; Shelta.
4. (uncountable, derogatory) Empty, hypocritical talk.
5. (uncountable) Whining speech, such as that used by beggars.
6. (countable, heraldry) A blazon of a coat of arms that makes a pun upon the name (or, less often, some attribute or function) of the bearer, canting arms.
7. (obsolete) A call for bidders at a public fair; an auction.
8. (intransitive) To speak with the jargon of a class or subgroup.

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.

[…]but numbers of these tenants or their descendants are now offering to sell their leases by cant,

The Doctor here, I will proceed with the learned. / VVhen he diſcourſeth of diſſection, / Or any point of Anatomy: that hee tells you, / Of Vena caua, and of vena porta, / The Meſeraicks, and the Meſenterium. / VVhat does he elſe but cant? […] / Does he not cant? VVho here does vnderſtand him?

Synonyms for can't

Antonyms for can't

Related Words

Word Forms

• cants
• canting
• canted
• kant

Usage Notes

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