Cantle
Pronunciation
- UK IPA: /ˈkantəl/
- US IPA: /ˈkæntəl/
Origin
From Old Northern French cantel, Old French chantel (Modern French chanteau), from Medieval Latin cantellus, diminutive of Latin cantus ("corner").
Full definition of cantle
Noun
cantle
(plural cantles)- (obsolete) A splinter, slice, or sliver broken off something.
- 1485, Sir Thomas Malory, Le Morte Darthur, Book I:ther begÄ a strong bataille with many grete strokes, & soo hewe with her swerdes that the cantels flewe in the feldes, and moche blood they bledde both ...
- ca. 1597, Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part I, Act III, Scene i:See how this river comes me cranking in,And cuts me from the best of all my landA huge half-moon, a monstrous cantle out.
- 1600, Edward Fairfax, The Jerusalem Delivered of Tasso, Book VI, xlviii:Their armors forged were of metal frail;
- On every side thereof huge cantles flies;
- The land was strewed all with plate and mail,
- That on the earth, on that their warm blood lies.
- MiltonIn one cantle of his law.
- The raised back of a saddle.
- 1888, Rudyard Kipling, ‘The Arrest of Lieutenant Golightly’, Plain Tales from the Hills, Folio 2005, p. 93:He recognised a horse when he saw one, and could do more than fill a cantle.
- 1926, T. E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom:Next day, he returned with a camel-saddle of equal beauty, the long brass horns of its cantles adorned with exquisite old Yemeni engraving.
- 1994, Cormac McCarthy, The Crossing:The traps were packed in the splitwillow basket that his father wore with the shoulderstraps loosed so that the bottom of the basket carried on the cantle of the saddle behind him.
Verb
- (obsolete, transitive) To cut into pieces.
- (obsolete, transitive) To cut out from.