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Descant   Listen
noun
Descant  n.  
1.
(Mus.)
(a)
Originally, a double song; a melody or counterpoint sung above the plain song of the tenor; a variation of an air; a variation by ornament of the main subject or plain song.
(b)
The upper voice in part music.
(c)
The canto, cantus, or soprano voice; the treble. "Twenty doctors expound one text twenty ways, as children make descant upon plain song." "She (the nightingale) all night long her amorous descant sung." Note: The term has also been used synonymously with counterpoint, or polyphony, which developed out of the French déchant, of the 12th century.
2.
A discourse formed on its theme, like variations on a musical air; a comment or comments. "Upon that simplest of themes how magnificent a descant!"



verb
Descant  v. i.  (past & past part. descanted; pres. part. descanting)  
1.
To sing a variation or accomplishment.
2.
To comment freely; to discourse with fullness and particularity; to discourse at large. "A virtuous man should be pleased to find people descanting on his actions."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Descant" Quotes from Famous Books



... violet's scent, the spicy tang of apples, the thrill of clasped arms and a lover's kiss. Or it may rise higher, and rest in the relations of things, in similes and metaphors; it may infuse longing and love and passion; it may descant fair reason and meditative musing. Or, in highest flight, beauty may range over the summits of lofty purpose, inspiring patriotism, devotion, sacrifice, till it becomes one with the love of man and the love of God, even as the fading outline of a mountain ...
— The World's Best Poetry -- Volume 10 • Various

... good human nature is still the best. A single substance comprises all that is, and no place is left for that profoundly decisive and destructive element called sin; all that we have to do is to descant on the marvelous loveliness of the world, the serene harmony of the universe, man's love of the true, the beautiful, and the good. Intellectual masters like Emerson and Renan. ignore conscience; they refuse to acknowledge the selfishness, the ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 8 - Talmage to Knox Little • Grenville Kleiser

... had sent off the cheque, whose receipt must have surprised him exceedingly, to her brother, felt herself to be almost bursting with the desire to confide in some one the history of her visit to the rich brewer. She longed to descant on his looks, to repeat his words, above all to tell of the heavenly promise contained in that last divine sentence concerning Franky. No one must be told; but Deleah was over young to be burdened with a secret; it made her restless. She could not sit with Bessie, to hear her discuss the pattern ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann

... against our country; but while decency makes a part of good manners, or feeling is preferable to a mechanical jargon, I am inclined to think the English have a merit more than they have hitherto ascribed to themselves. Do not suppose, however, that I am going to descant on the old imputations of "French flattery," and "French insincerity;" for I am far from concluding that civil behaviour gives one a right to expect kind offices, or that a man is false because he pays a compliment, ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady

... sex is one which I descant upon, in this place, with diffidence. Yet so severe are the sufferings, that spring, directly and remotely, from the exercise of her Affections, that I could not acquit myself of true fidelity, were ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey


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