CANT. To cant; to toss or throw: as, Cant a slug into your bread room; drink a dram. SEA WIT. CANTICLE. A parish clerk. CANTING. Preaching with a whining, affected tone, perhaps a corruption of chaunting; some derive it from Andrew Cant, a famous Scotch preacher, who used that whining manner of expression. Also a kind of gibberish used by thieves and gypsies, called likewise pedlar's French, the slang, &c. &c. CANTERS, or THE CANTING CREW. Thieves, beggars, and gypsies, or any others using the canting lingo. See LINGO. CANTERBURY STORY. A long roundabout tale. TO CAP. To take one's oath. I will cap downright; I will swear home. CANT. TO CAP. To take off one's hat or cap. To cap the quadrangle; a lesson of humility, or rather servility, taught undergraduates at the university, where they are obliged to cross the area of the college cap in hand, in reverence to the fellows who sometimes walk there. The same ceremony is observed on coming on the quarter deck of ships of war, although no officer should be on it. TO CAP. To support another's assertion or tale. To assist a man in cheating. The file kidded the joskin with sham books, and his pall capped; the deep one cheated the countryman with false cards, and his confederate assisted in the fraud. CAP ACQUAINTANCE. Persons slightly acquainted, or only so far as mutually to salute with the hat on meeting. A woman who endeavours to attract the notice of any particular man, is said to set her cap at him. CAPER MERCHANT. A dancing master, or hop merchant; marchand des capriolles. FRENCH TERM.--To cut papers; to leap or jump in dancing. See HOP MERCHANT. CAPPING VERSES. Repeating Latin Verses in turn, beginning with the letter with which the last speaker left off. CAPON. A castrated cock, also an eunuch. CAPRICORNIFIED. Cuckolded, hornified. CAPSIZE. To overturn or reverse. He took his broth till he capsized; he drank till he fell out of his chair. SEA TERM. CAPTAIN. Led captain; an humble dependant in a great family, who for a precarious subsistence, and distant hopes of preferment, suffers every kind of indignity, and is the butt of every species of joke or ill-humour. The small provision made for officers of the army and navy in time of peace, obliges many in both services to occupy this wretched station. The idea of the appellation is taken from a led horse, many of which for magnificence appear in the retinues of great personages on solemn occasions, such as processions, &c. CAPTAIN COPPERTHORNE'S CREW. All officers; a saying of a company where everyone strives to rule. CAPTAIN LIEUTENANT. Meat between veal and beef, the flesh of an old calf; a military simile, drawn from the officer of that denomination, who has only the pay of a lieutenant, with the rank of captain; and so is not entirely one or the other, but between both.