chant

See also: Chant

English

This entry needs a sound clip exemplifying the definition.

Alternative forms

• (archaic) chaunt

Etymology

From Middle English chaunten, from Old French chanter, from Latin cantāre (“sing”). Doublet of cant.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /t͡ʃɑːnt/, /t͡ʃænt/
• (US) IPA^(key): /t͡ʃænt/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɑːnt, -ænt

Verb

chant (third-person singular simple present chants, present participle chanting, simple past and past participle chanted)

1. To sing, especially without instruments, and as applied to monophonic and pre-modern music.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto VII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 3:

     the cherefull birds of sundry kind / Do chaunt sweet musick, to delight his mind

2. To sing or intone sacred text.
3. To utter or repeat in a strongly rhythmical manner, especially as a group.

   The football fans chanted insults at the referee.

   • 2009, Leo J. Daugherty III, The Marine Corps and the State Department, page 116:

     On their way to Parliament Square, the demonstrators chanted slogans, sang the Hungarian national anthem, and waved banners and Hungarian flags (minus the hated Communist emblem).

4. (transitive, archaic) To sell horses fraudulently, exaggerating their merits.

Derived terms

• chanting goshawk

Translations

sing monophonically without instruments

• Bulgarian: напявам (napjavam)
• Dutch: chanten (nl), zingen (nl)
• Finnish: messuta
• French: chanter (fr)
• Galician: cantar (gl)
• Georgian: გალობა (galoba), გალობს (galobs)
• Irish: can, bí ag cantaireacht
• Italian: salmodiare (it)
• Kazakh: ән айту (än aitu)
• Latin: cano (la)
• Maori: oriori
• Nahuatl: tlatoa
• Portuguese: cantar (pt)
• Rapa Nui: rongorongo
• Russian: петь (ru) (petʹ)
• Spanish: (religious) salmodiar (es)
• Turkish: şarkı söylemek (tr), terennüm etmek (tr), ilahi okumak (tr)

utter or repeat in a strongly rhythmical manner

• Esperanto: skandi
• Polish: skandować (pl) impf
• Romanian: scanda (ro)
• Russian: скандировать (ru) (skandirovatʹ)

Noun

chant (plural chants)

1. Type of singing done generally without instruments and harmony.
2. (music) A short and simple melody, divided into two parts by double bars, to which unmetrical psalms, etc., are sung or recited. It is the most ancient form of choral music.
3. Twang; manner of speaking; a canting tone.
   • 1849–1861, Thomas Babington Macaulay, chapter 17, in The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, volumes (please specify |volume=I to V), London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, →OCLC:

     His strange face, his strange chant.

4. A repetitive song, typically an incantation or part of a ritual.

Derived terms

• chant royal
• chant talk
• chant therapy
• Jody chant
• terrace chant

 

Translations

type of singing

• Georgian: საგალობელი (sagalobeli)
• Irish: cantaireacht f, andord m
• Italian: salmodia (it) f
• Maori: oriori, whakaoriori
• Russian: песнопе́ние (ru) n (pesnopénije)
• Turkish: şarkı (tr), terennüm (tr), ilahi (tr)

Related terms

• cant
• cantor
• cantorate
• cantrix
• chanter
• enchant
• Gregorian chant
• incantation

 

Anagrams

• natch

Dutch

Pronunciation

• Audio

  (file)

Verb

chant

1. inflection of chanten:
   1. first/second/third-person singular present indicative
   2. imperative

Anagrams

• nacht

French

Etymology

Inherited from Old French chant, from Latin cantus.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ʃɑ̃/

• audio

  (file)

Noun

chant m (plural chants)

1. song

   Synonym: chanson

   • 2015, Fréro Delavega, Le chant des sirènes:

     Quand les souvenirs s’emmêlent, les larmes me viennent, et le chant des sirènes me replonge en hiver

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

2. the discipline of singing

Derived terms

• chant du cygne

Related terms

• chanter

Descendants

• → Turkish: şan

Further reading

• “chant”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Middle French

Etymology

From Old French chant.

Noun

chant m (plural chants or chants)

1. song
   • 1552, François Rabelais, Le Tiers Livre:

     chant de Cycne est praesaige certain de sa mort prochaine

     the song of the swan is a certain prediction of its death

Descendants

• French: chant

Norman

Etymology

Borrowed from French chant.

Noun

chant m (plural chants)

1. (Jersey) song

Synonyms

• chanson

Old French

Etymology

From Latin cantus.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): (early) /ˈtʃant/
• IPA^(key): (late) /ˈʃant/
• Rhymes: -ant

Noun

chant m (oblique plural chanz or chantz, nominative singular chanz or chantz, nominative plural chant)

1. song
   • c. 1150, Thomas d'Angleterre, Le Roman de Tristan, Champion Classiques edition, →ISBN, page 104, line 1027:

     car sun chant signefie mort

     for his song signifies death

Synonyms

• chançon

Descendants

• Middle French: chant
  • French: chant

Romansch

Verb

chant

1. first-person singular present indicative of chantar

Welsh

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /χant/

Noun

chant

1. Aspirate mutation of cant.

Mutation

Welsh mutation
radical	soft	nasal	aspirate
cant	gant	nghant	chant
Note: Some of these forms may be hypothetical. Not every possible mutated form of every word actually occurs.