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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

canter.

A gait of a horse between a trot and a gallop, consisting of three beats and a "suspension" phase, where there are no feet on the ground. Also describing this gait on other four-legged animals.

6 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈkæn.tə/Australia, Received-Pronunciation/ˈkæn.tɚ/Canada, General-American[ˈkɛən.tɚ]Canada, General-American
  1. A gait of a horse between a trot and a gallop, consisting of three beats and a "suspension" phase, where there are no feet on the ground. Also describing this gait on other four-legged animals.

  2. A ride on a horse at such speed.

Where this word comes from

Short for Canterbury pace, from the supposed easy pace of medieval pilgrims to Canterbury.

verb/ˈkæn.tə/Australia, Received-Pronunciation/ˈkæn.tɚ/Canada, General-American[ˈkɛən.tɚ]Canada, General-American
  1. To move at such pace.

    intransitive
  2. To cause to move at a canter; to ride (a horse) at a canter.

    transitive
Where this word comes from

Short for Canterbury pace, from the supposed easy pace of medieval pilgrims to Canterbury.

noun/ˈkæn.tə/Australia, Received-Pronunciation/ˈkæn.tɚ/Canada, General-American[ˈkɛən.tɚ]Canada, General-American
  1. One who cants or whines; a beggar.

  2. One who makes hypocritical pretensions to goodness; one who uses canting language.

Where this word comes from

Etymology tree English cant Proto-Indo-European *-yósder. Proto-Italic *-āzios Latin -āriusnom. Latin -āriusbor. Proto-Germanic *-ārijaz Proto-West Germanic *-ārī Old English -ere Middle English -ere English -er English canter From cant + -er.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.