canon-bitt, a smooth round bit for horses. Spenser, F. Q. i. 7. 37; ‘Canon, a canon-bitt for a horse’, Cotgrave. O. Prov. canon, a tube (Levy).
canstick, a candlestick. 1 Hen. IV, iii. 1. 131. Still in use in Berks. (EDD.).
cant, a corner, a niche; ‘Irene or Peace, she was placed aloft in a cant’, B. Jonson, James I’s Entertainment (1603); Warner, Monuments of Honour (ed. Dyce, 369) See EDD. (s.v. Cant, sb.3 1). Norm. F. cant, ‘angle’ (Moisy).
cant, a piece, portion. Sir T. Wyatt, Sat. iii. 45. A Kentish term, see EDD. (s.v. Cant, sb4 2). Cp. M. Du. kant (Verdam).
canted, tilted up, thrown up. Stanyhurst, tr. of Virgil, Aeneid, iii. 211. See EDD. (s.v. Cant, vb.3 9 (1)). E. Fris. kanten, ‘etwas auf die Seite legen’ (Koolman).
canter, one who cants, a vagrant. B. Jonson, Staple of News, ii. 1 (P. Can.).
cantharides, a kind of flies; Spanish flies; sometimes Aphides. Drayton, Muses’ Elysium, Nymph, viii. 54. Used as a stimulant, Beaumont and Fl., Philaster, iv. 1 (Cleremont). L. cantharides, pl. of cantharis; Gk. κανθαρίς, blister-fly.
canting out, singing out, in a beggar’s whine; ‘ ’Tis easier canting out, “A piece of broken bread for a poor man”, than singing “Brooms, maids, brooms: come, buy my brooms”,’ The London Chanticleers, scene 1 (Heath).
cantle, a part, portion; ‘Liron de pain, a cantle of bread’, Cotgrave; ‘A cantel pars, portio’, Levins. Manipulus. ME. cantel, ‘minutal’ (Prompt. EETS., see note, no. 324). OF. (Picard) cantel = F. chanteau, ‘a corner-piece or piece broken off from the corner, hence, a cantel of bread’ (Cotgr.).
cantle, to portion out, Dekker, Whore of Babylon, i. 1. 9; Dryden, Juvenal’s Satire, vii.