What's the difference between cant and prattle?

Cant


Definition:

  • (n.) A corner; angle; niche.
  • (n.) An outer or external angle.
  • (n.) An inclination from a horizontal or vertical line; a slope or bevel; a titl.
  • (n.) A sudden thrust, push, kick, or other impulse, producing a bias or change of direction; also, the bias or turn so give; as, to give a ball a cant.
  • (n.) A segment forming a side piece in the head of a cask.
  • (n.) A segment of he rim of a wooden cogwheel.
  • (n.) A piece of wood laid upon the deck of a vessel to support the bulkheads.
  • (v. t.) To incline; to set at an angle; to tilt over; to tip upon the edge; as, to cant a cask; to cant a ship.
  • (v. t.) To give a sudden turn or new direction to; as, to cant round a stick of timber; to cant a football.
  • (v. t.) To cut off an angle from, as from a square piece of timber, or from the head of a bolt.
  • (n.) An affected, singsong mode of speaking.
  • (n.) The idioms and peculiarities of speech in any sect, class, or occupation.
  • (n.) The use of religious phraseology without understanding or sincerity; empty, solemn speech, implying what is not felt; hypocrisy.
  • (n.) Vulgar jargon; slang; the secret language spoker by gipsies, thieves, tramps, or beggars.
  • (a.) Of the nature of cant; affected; vulgar.
  • (v. i.) To speak in a whining voice, or an affected, singsong tone.
  • (v. i.) To make whining pretensions to goodness; to talk with an affectation of religion, philanthropy, etc.; to practice hypocrisy; as, a canting fanatic.
  • (v. i.) To use pretentious language, barbarous jargon, or technical terms; to talk with an affectation of learning.
  • (n.) A call for bidders at a public sale; an auction.
  • (v. t.) to sell by auction, or bid a price at a sale by auction.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Vince, too, prefers plain speaking to corporate cant – and is even willing to suggest that Tory householders should go elsewhere to buy their energy if they object to his stance.
  • (2) Bob Cant, editor of a 2008 book called Footsteps and Witnesses: Lesbian and Gay Lifestories from Scotland, says that when he was growing up in 1950s and 60s Scotland, the illegality of homosexual activity was “not a problem for me at all”.
  • (3) The purpose of this study was to investigate the changes of the cant of occlusal plane during and after orthodontic treatment.
  • (4) We have an obligation that we cant ignore something like this.” However, Katz later appeared to accept Spicer’s apology.
  • (5) I care, but I cant do enough so I’ll forget I care.
  • (6) Speaking a week after his youngest brother, Jaffar, 17 , was killed storming a Syrian government checkpoint, Deghayes said: “I cant afford to leave jihad and the journey to jannah [paradise].” Jaffar is the youngest known Briton to have died during the gruesome three-year conflict.
  • (7) The present study evaluated the ability of clofibrate to sensitize in situ a mouse carcinoma (CaNT) to radiation.
  • (8) October 1, 2013 Mark Knoller (@markknoller) The @ONDCP , the WH Office Office of Drug Policy says "we're sorry" but it cant respond to tweets and replies due to the shutdown.
  • (9) When I see footage of her fencing I cant believe what I see,” says Pinkhasov, a Russian immigrant who fenced himself both in the Soviet Union and in the US.
  • (10) Nicotinamide increased the radiation sensitivity of CaNT tumours under all three different oxygen concentrations tested (21, 95 and 100% oxygen).
  • (11) 1.43pm BST Your comments Paddyde 26 June 2014 12:24pm So Syngenta applies to have UK government ecotox experts review the data and make a judgment and the general opinion in the comments section is: " We cant let the scientists review the data and come to an informed opinion because it might not agree with ours.
  • (12) There are always compromises, and that nagging voice says ‘I cant do enough, so I may as well not try.’ Reading Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett’s response to Vivienne Westwood in the Guardian, ‘ Living ethically isn’t cheap, Vivienne ’, made my inner voice rear its ugly head again – she finishes with the words ‘people don’t seem to care … or don’t have the energy to care.
  • (13) The levels of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) in the transplantable CaNT murine tumor grown in CBA mice at various times following 5, 10, and 15 Gy X rays (100 kVp) were increased within 45 min.
  • (14) Jonathan Franzen on his misanthropic reputation: 'We live in a world of cant' Read more While the novelist blamed himself for the incident, he admitted he also blamed Winfrey.
  • (15) What you get instead is the kind of cant served up by David Cameron at last year’s Conservative conference: “It’s not the government that creates jobs.
  • (16) #Israel #Jpost July 1, 2014 Ben Hartman (@Benhartman) Ofir talking about the courage he heard in his sons voice in the dispatch tape when he called to report he'd been kidnapped #Israel #Jpost July 1, 2014 Ben Hartman (@Benhartman) Ofir Shaer: What courage for someone who was not yet even 17 #Israel #Jpost July 1, 2014 Ben Hartman (@Benhartman) Ofir: I never pictured you'd become a hero of #Israel while still just a teen #Jpost July 1, 2014 Ben Hartman (@Benhartman) Gil-ad Shaers mother: I sit in your room and cant accept that our worst nightmare came true #Israel #Jpost July 1, 2014 2.08pm BST Israel claims its aerial bombardment of Gaza in the wake of the discovery of the bodies of the abducted teenagers was aimed at prevent further kidnappings, my colleague Matthew Weaver writes.
  • (17) He talked about its special, extra-white glass and how the canted surfaces would reflect the sky and produce "a nice light presence".
  • (18) Yen Manager: for choice we want lower libors...let the [Money Market] guys know pls Yen Trader 2: sure i am setting today as [Yen Trader 1] and cash guy off [Primary Submitter] Yen Manager: great set it nice and low Yen Trader 2: 1.02 in 6m or lower Yen Manager: yeh lower Yen Trader 2: 1.01 then cant really go much lower than that Yen Manager: ok Yen Trader 2: u care for 1m and 3m too[?]
  • (19) Another wrote: "I am backing Gatwick for a second runway but if u cant handle passenger influx with one runway, how will u handle 2??"
  • (20) Changes in the levels of glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6P-DH) activity, versus tumour volume were measured in vivo under normoxic conditions in the CaNT tumours grown in CBA mice.

Prattle


Definition:

  • (v. i.) To talk much and idly; to prate; hence, to talk lightly and artlessly, like a child; to utter child's talk.
  • (v. t.) To utter as prattle; to babble; as, to prattle treason.
  • (n.) Trifling or childish tattle; empty talk; loquacity on trivial subjects; prate; babble.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) The talk coming from senior Tories – at least some of whom have the grace to squirm when questioned on this topic – suggesting that it's all terribly complicated, that it was a long time ago and that even SS members were, in some ways, themselves victims, is uncomfortably close to the kind of prattle we used to hear from those we called Holocaust revisionists.
  • (2) An immensely cerebral man, who trained himself to need only six hours of sleep - believing that a woman should have seven and only a fool eight - Mishcon was not a man given to small talk, nor one who would tolerate prattle for the sake of it.
  • (3) Comparisons between present-day China and the soulless, dreary totalitarian socialist state immortalised in Orwell's masterpiece are difficult to sustain after seeing clutch after clutch of Chinese teenagers, dressed in the latest quasi-Japanophile fashion, walk down a mobbed Beijing pedestrian shopping arcade nibbling at bouquets of candy floss and prattling on as if the phrase "commodity fetishism" had never crossed their young lips.
  • (4) The opening prattle this week is all about the seven deadly sins.
  • (5) I think they're about to escort me from the building for prattling on in an unGuardian manner.
  • (6) Melancholia itself would have been talking point enough without Von Trier's prattling.
  • (7) These days depression is the stuff of postprandial dinner-party prattle, but Plath explored the condition with no sense of its being a "condition" that others shared, no established therapeutic vocabulary, and no Prozac.
  • (8) The South Americans have played 25 games, and are guaranteed to play two more including tomorrow's match • Three of Diego Forlán's four goals in World Cup finals history have come from outside the box 7:10pm: As ITV's panel prattling on about how surprising it is to see harmony in the Dutch camp - exagerrating the divisions of the past and reinforcing the view that English society remains stubbornly anti-intellectual (and anti-male knitting), afraid of anyone who does not fear to speak his mind - let's see what's happening in Uruguay.
  • (9) Anyway, I won't prattle on for there is more live action to be found: San Jose Earthquakes vs LA Galaxy is about to kick off.
  • (10) Or it could be that the Sun loves me when I'm a prattling, giggling, Essex boy "Shagger of the Year", when I'm in my proper place, beneath vacuous headlines, herding their flock towards dumb lingo and crap bingo, when I'm being cheeky on MTV or even unwisely invading answerphones, in a way that many would argue, is less offensive than the manner that they are alleged to have done.
  • (11) Inexperienced MPs who prattle on about deeper UK involvement in Syria don’t yet grasp how merely symbolic much of it is nowadays.
  • (12) When I hear him prattle on inanely I can imagine how Neil Lennon felt when the Geordie dullard kicked him in the head."
  • (13) 2.30pm BST If you'd like to see me, Ian Prior, Barry Glendenning and Owen Gibson prattling on in front of a camera about Sir Alex Ferguson's retirement, then you're in luck!
  • (14) The forced cheerfulness of Nicholson's earlier scenes with the hotel manager are a sharp contrast to the sense of anger and tension as he drives and listens to his wife and son prattle on.