descant

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“
Instead of the national game the class was wrestling with figured bass and the art of descant, and again it groaned aloud Mr. Quelson faced his pupils.

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Definitions (21)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (6)

  1. noun Music An ornamental melody or counterpoint sung or played above a theme.
  2. noun Music The highest part sung in part music.
  3. noun A discussion or discourse on a theme.
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Examples (50)

  • The sharp, clear scent of water lay like a descant over the darker notes of wet soil and thick plant-life. —  EBSCOhost
  • Inability for “fit and matchable conversation”: this is that supreme fault in a wife on which the descant is from first to last, and from which, when it is plainly ingrained and unamendable, the right of divorce is maintained to be, by the law of God and all civil reason, the due deliverance. —  The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649
  • Rather than descant, he decided to do a monologue as Shakespeare. —  Harper's Magazine
  • Then, when the ladies had left us, Browne had kindled up, and we all three had a glorious hour, voicing the praises of Africa in a sort of three-man descant or glee. —  Cinderella in the South Twenty-Five South African Tales
  • Thus what Milton writes of the nightingale She all night long her amorous descant sung is echoed by Gray in the Sonnet on the Death of Richard West The birds in vain their amorous descant join Now a "descant" is a variation imposed upon a plain-song. —  Milton
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Etymologies (3)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Middle English, from Anglo-Norman descaunt, from Medieval Latin discantus, a refrain : Latin dis-, dis- + Latin cantus, song, from past participle of canere, to sing; see kan- in Indo-European roots.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (2)

  1. Also discant; from Old French descant, descaunt, usually deschant, French déchant (as a historical term), descant, = Provencal deschans, descant, = Spanish discante = Portuguese descante = G. Danish Swedish diskant, descant, from Middle Latin discantus, a part-song, refrain, descant, from Latin dis-, away, apart, + cantus, song, a concert (see cant and chant); or rather from the verb, Middle Latin discantare, sing, descant: see descant, v. The word has also been explained as a variant (with dis-, Greek δις-, δι-, for L. bis-) of an assumed Middle Latin *biscantus, “double-song,” from Latin bis-, bi-, two-, + cantus, song.
  2. = Old French descanter, deschanter, dechanter, later sometimes discanter, sing, descant, also recant, French déchanter, change one's note, = Provencal deschantar = Spanish discantar = Portuguese descantar, chant, sing, compose or recite verses, quaver upon an air, discourse copiously, from Middle Latin discantare, sing, descant, from Latin dis-, apart, + cantare, sing: see cant, chant, and cf. descant, n. Cf. Middle Latin discantare (later Italian discantare = Old French descanter, deschanter), disenchant, from Latin dis- privative + cantare, singular Cf. also decantate.
 

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/dɛsˈkænt/
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