descant
English edit
Alternative forms edit
Etymology edit
From Anglo-Norman descaunt, from Medieval Latin discantus.
Pronunciation edit
Noun edit
descant (plural descants)
- A lengthy discourse on a subject.
- 1828, Thomas De Quincey, “Elements of Rhetoric”, in Blackwood's Magazine:
- Upon that simplest of themes how magnificent a descant!
- (music) A counterpoint melody sung or played above the theme.
Derived terms edit
Translations edit
Verb edit
descant (third-person singular simple present descants, present participle descanting, simple past and past participle descanted)
- (intransitive) To discuss at length.
- 1831, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], Romance and Reality. […], volume I, London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, pages 128–129:
- but shun the establishment of a bachelor who has hung a pendulum between temptation and prudence till the age of———but of all subjects, age is the one on which it is most invidious to descant.
- 1913, Robert Barr, chapter 4, in Lord Stranleigh Abroad[1]:
- “… This is a surprise attack, and I’d no wish that the garrison, forewarned, should escape. I am sure, Lord Stranleigh, that he has been descanting on the distraction of the woods and the camp, or perhaps the metropolitan dissipation of Philadelphia, …”
- 1919, Ronald Firbank, Valmouth, Duckworth, hardback edition, page 121
- Involving some interesting, intellectual trips, she was descanting lightly to right and left.
- (intransitive, music) To sing or play a descant.
