1851–61. H. Mayhew, London Labour and London Poor, vol. III., p.
415. The house was good for a cant—that’s some food—bread or meat.
1877. Besant and Rice, Son of Vulcan, pt. I., ch. ix. The slavey’s
been always good for a kant, and the cove for a bob.
4. (tramps’).—A gift. [Possibly connected with cant, sense 3, a share
or portion.]
1857. Snowden. Mag. Assistant, 3 ed., p. 444. Gift of Clothes—Cant
of Togs.
Verb.—1. To speak with the beggar’s whine.
1567. Harman, Caveat (1869), 34. ‘It shall be lawefull for the to
Cant’—that is, to aske or begge—‘for thy living in al places.’
1610. Rowlands, Martin Mark-all, p. 17 (B. Club’s Repr., 1874).
According to the saying that you [thieves and cadgers] haue among
your selues (If you can Cant, you will neuer worke) shewing that if
they haue beene rogues so long, that they can Cant, they will neuer
settle themselues to labour againe.
2. To speak the jargon of gipsies, beggars, and other vagrants.—See
Canting.
1592. Defence of Conny-catching, in Greene’s Works, XI., 45. At
these wordes Conny-catcher and Setter, I was driven into as great a
maze, as if one had dropt out of the clowds, to heare a peasant
cant the wordes of art belonging to our trade.
1609. Dekker, English Villainies (1638), And as these people are
strange, both in names and in their conditions, so do they speake a
language (proper only to themselves) called Canting, which is more
strange. This word canting, seemes to be derived from the Latine
Verbe (Canto) which signifies in English to sing, or to make a
sounde with words, that is to say, to speake. And very aptly may
Canting take its derivation, à cantando, from singing, because
amongst these beggerly consorts that can play on no better
instruments, the language of canting is a kinde of Musicke, and he
that in such assemblies can cant best, is counted the best
musician.
1639. Ford, Lady’s Trial, V., 1. One can man a gulan, and cant, and
pick a pocket.
1748. T. Dyche, Dictionary (5 ed.) Cant (v.): to talk gibberish
like gypsies.