canting

Canting is a term used in several distinct fields, generally tied to the ideas of tilt, obliqueness, or wordplay. In heraldry, canting arms are coats of arms that incorporate a visual or phonetic pun on the holder’s name or occupation. The practice, found in medieval and early modern heraldic work, uses charges that allude to the bearer’s identity, sometimes through a literal depiction of a related object or through a rebus-like image.

In construction and engineering, to cant a component means to place it at an angle or slope relative to a reference plane. Canting produces an oblique surface, as in cant rails or cant beams, and is used to accommodate geometry, drainage, or load paths.

In linguistics and sociolinguistics, cant refers to a specialized jargon or canting language used by a group to exclude outsiders. Canting, then, describes the use of such cant, or the act of speaking in cant, particularly in historical contexts such as thieves’ cant.

The term canting thus encompasses both technical notions of angle and angle-like wordplay, as well as a specific heraldic practice of punning arms.