Skip to main content
Glite Dictionary
filled with cant

filled with cant

9.7
Full of words that sound moral but are not true
  • idiom
  • Formal
translation icon : lleno de palabrería
  • The politician's promises were filled with cant and empty assurances.

Examples

  • The meeting became unbearable when the discussion was filled with cant and buzzwords.

  • Her essay was so filled with cant that it failed to persuade the readers.

  • Don't be filled with cant!

  • His speech was filled with cant and lacked substance.

  • The article was filled with cant, making it hard to take the author's message seriously.

  • The director's comments about working conditions were filled with cant, failing to address the real issues.

  • Her presentation was filled with cant, using jargon that obscured rather than clarified the topic.

Synonyms

glib
vsfilled with cant
24 7.9

Being smooth and confident when talking but not honest

leans toward hypocritical moralizing and jargon rather than mere shallow fluency
full of crap
vsfilled with cant
  • Offensive
15 9.9

Saying things that are not true

focuses on hypocritical moral talk and jargon rather than simple falsehood
preachy
vsfilled with cant
  • Informal
11 6.8

Giving moral advice in a boring, bossy way

uses moral language insincerely and hypocritically rather than earnestly
full of bluster
vsfilled with cant
1 7.4

Loud words that try to threaten or impress but have no real meaning

relies on moral jargon and hypocritical language rather than loud boasting
canting
vsfilled with cant
  • Archaic
9.6

Speaking or acting as if morally good but not sincere

focuses more on excessive jargon and moral phrases than simple piety

Antonyms

honest
∞ 1.0

Truthful and fair, not cheating or lying

sincere
239 2.5

Being honest and showing what you really feel

How Sincere

earnest
28 4.2
sincere
239 2.5
filled with cant
  • Formal
9.7
insincere
19 4.2
hypocritical
83 6.1

Surface Forms

filled with cant positive

Morphology

filled + with + cant

The phrase is a straightforward composition of the productive pattern 'filled with X' where X = 'cant' (hypocritical moralizing talk); if a learner knows the noun 'cant' the overall meaning 'full of insincere/moralistic talk' is directly derivable from the parts. Although 'cant' is relatively low-frequency, the syntactic pattern is cross-linguistically common and the sense is transparent given knowledge of the constituents.

Etymology

Filled with cant comes from an old use of cant for the secret, showy talk of beggars and fake preachers who used special words to sound holy or clever. So when a speech is 'filled with cant', it is full of 'insincere' or moral-sounding phrases and empty words that try to impress but do not mean much.