cant
1
9.5
- noun
- /kænt/
:
palabrería
- Fortunately, political cant occupies a comparatively small portion of his oeuvre.
- political cant
- cant and hypocrisy
- free of cant
Examples
-
"Spare me the sanctimonious cant, Murphy."
Fiction book (2001) -
Do you think you can fool me with such hypocrite's cant?
Academic text (1999) -
You still sound the Catholic cant of Mary supreme.
Blog text (19) -
And have your words all twisted by their cant.
Fiction book (1997) -
"It is a voice of scrupulous honesty, freedom from cant, and strong moral commitment."
Academic text (1993) -
When markets screw up this spectacularly, it's hard to believe in the "efficient markets" cant.
Blog text (16) -
And I will have no truck with the self-aggrandizing cant of the Self-Made Man.
Blog text (13) -
Don't insult human relations by dragging all that cant about buying and selling into it.
-
Coldwater's sermon was mercifully brief and free of his usual cant.
Fiction book (1994) -
She had grown tired of his endless cant about morality without any real action.
Synonyms
1
4.3
Words that sound important but have no real meaning or action
A religious or moral saying repeated a lot but without real meaning
Antonyms
Idioms
Compounds
How Sincere
Surface Forms
Etymology
One helpful way to remember cant (insincere talk) is to think of chant, a word for 'singing' or repeated words; 'cant' came to mean the same kind of repeated, empty moral phrases that sound rehearsed rather than true.