discant

American  

[dis-kant, dis-kant] / ˈdɪs kænt, dɪsˈkænt /

noun

1. Music. Also discantus a 13th-century polyphonic style with strict mensural meter in all the voice parts, in contrast to the metrically free organum of the period.

2. descant.

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verb (used without object)

1. descant.

discant British  

noun

1. a variant of descant descant descant

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verb

1. a variant of descant descant descant

Other Word Forms

• discanter noun

Etymology

Origin of discant

1400–50; late Middle English < Medieval Latin discanthus; see descant

Example Sentences

Then the spirit moving her, she began to discant on things past and people vanished.

From The Ghost Girl by Stacpoole, H. De Vere (Henry De Vere)

To hear him discant you would have thought his wings were sprouting.

From A Transient Guest and Other Episodes by Saltus, Edgar

Sit memor nostri, fideique solvat Fida mercedem, meritoque blandum Thraliae discant resonare nomen         Littora Skiae.

From Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 The Works of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., in Nine Volumes by Johnson, Samuel

Praetorius22 designates the transverse flute as “Flauta traversa’ Querpfeiff” and “Querfl�t,” and gives the pitch of the bass in the tenor and alto in and the discant in as varieties then in use.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 10, Slice 5 "Fleury, Claude" to "Foraker" by Various

Eodem exemplo, vos quoque insidias detegite, et populos vestrae solicitudini commissos docete, quae recta sunt, ut a laqueis, quos ante pedes struunt, declinare discant, ne in transversum agantur.

From The Irish Ecclesiastical Record, Volume 1, March 1865 by Various