descantとは 意味・読み方・使い方

語源

From Anglo-Norman descaunt, from Medieval Latin discantus.

発音

• (英国発音) IPA^(key): /ˈdɛskænt/
• 韻: -ænt

名詞

descant (複数形 descants)

1. A lengthy discourse on a subject.
   • 1828, Thomas De Quincey, Elements of Rhetoric (published in Blackwood's Magazine)

     Upon that simplest of themes how magnificent a descant!

2. (music) A counterpoint melody sung or played above the theme.

動詞

descant (三人称単数 現在形 descants, 現在分詞 descanting, 過去形および過去分詞形 descanted)

1. (intransitive) To discuss at length.
   • 1831, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], Romance and Reality. […], volume I, London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, […], OCLC 24531354, pages 128–129:

     but shun the establishment of a bachelor who has hung a pendulum between temptation and prudence till the age of———but of all subjects, age is the one on which it is most invidious to descant.

   • 1913, Robert Barr, chapter 4, in Lord Stranleigh Abroad‎^[1]:

     “… This is a surprise attack, and I’d no wish that the garrison, forewarned, should escape. I am sure, Lord Stranleigh, that he has been descanting on the distraction of the woods and the camp, or perhaps the metropolitan dissipation of Philadelphia, …”