chant
UK/t͡ʃɑːnt/
More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations
Midlands/t͡ʃant/
chant verb: to sing, especially without instruments, and as applied to monophonic and pre-modern music.
Verb
chant (third-person singular simple present chants, present participle chanting, simple past and past participle chanted)
- To sing, especially without instruments, and as applied to monophonic and pre-modern music.
- the cherefull birds of sundry kind / Do chaunt sweet musick, to delight his mind1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto VII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 3
- To sing or intone sacred text.
- To utter or repeat in a strongly rhythmical manner, especially as a group.
- The football fans chanted insults at the referee.
- On their way to Parliament Square, the demonstrators chanted slogans, sang the Hungarian national anthem, and waved banners and Hungarian flags (minus the hated Communist emblem).2009, Leo J. Daugherty III, The Marine Corps and the State Department, page 116
- To sell horses fraudulently, exaggerating their merits.
Noun
chant (plural chants)
- Type of singing done generally without instruments and harmony.
- A short and simple melody to which unmetrical psalms, etc., are sung or recited.
- A harmonized melody used in Anglican chant, usually split into two two-bar phrases, to which the words of a psalm are sung by a choir; typically, each musical phrase corresponds to the text of half of a verse.
- Twang; manner of speaking; a canting tone.
- His strange face, his strange chant.1849–1861, Thomas Babington Macaulay, chapter XVII, in The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, volume (please specify |volume=I to V), London: Longman, Brown, Green, and...
- A repetitive song, typically an incantation or part of a ritual.
Proper noun capitalized: Chant
Chant (plural Chants)
- A surname from French.
chant meaning in Hindi, Urdu, Bengali and Malayalam
chant in Hindi
- sing monophonically without instruments
- मंत्रणा mantraṇā
- type of singing
- जाप jāp
chant in Urdu
- to chant
- پڑھنا paṛhnā
chant in Bengali
- স্তব, সঙ্গীত
chant in Malayalam
- സ്തുതിഗീതം പാടുക, കീർത്തനം ചൊല്ലുക, സ്തോത്രം ചൊല്ലുക, ജപിക്കുക
More languagesFewer languages
- chant in Kannada
- ಹಾಡು, ನುಡಿಹಾಡು
- chant in Punjabi
- گانا gāṇā
- chant in Gujarati
- જપ કરો, જાપ કરો, કીર્તન કરો
- chant in Odia
- ଜପ କରନ୍ତୁ, ଜପ କର, ଜପ କରିବା ପାଇଁ
- chant in Sanskrit
- स्तौति stáuti
- chant in Arabic
- أُهْزُوجَة ʔuhzūja, أَهَازِيج ʔahāzīj
Examples of chant in a sentence
- I remember much chanting in church during my childhood.
- Winnipeggers met Mayor Scott Gillingham’s affirmation of support for Lviv, Ukraine, with chants of “Slava Ukraini!
- I caught sight of a lake of faces chanting 'Mon the Biff!
Forms of chant
| Verb | |
|---|---|
| third-person singular present | chants |
| present participle | chanting |
| past participle | chanted |
| past | chanted |
| alternative form | chaunt |
| Noun | |
| plural | chants |
| Proper noun | |
| plural | Chants |
Origin of chant
From Middle English chaunten, from Old French chanter, from Latin cantāre (“sing”). Doublet of cant.
Probably a nickname from French chant (“song, melody”).
Words formed from chant
Phrases with chant
Words that rhyme with chant
Questions about chant
- What does chant mean?
- Chant means to sing, especially without instruments, and as applied to monophonic and pre-modern music.
- What is chant in Hindi?
- Chant in Hindi is मंत्रणा (mantraṇā), जाप (jāp). See Chant meaning in Hindi.
- What part of speech is chant?
- Chant can be a verb, a noun or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce chant?
- Chant is pronounced /t͡ʃɑːnt/ (UK).
- What is the past tense of chant?
- The past tense of chant is chanted.
Words near chant in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: chant (page history and authors); Chant (page history and authors); پڑھنا (Urdu) (page history and authors); chant (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); chant (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); chant (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); گانا (Punjabi) (page history and authors); chant (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); chant (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); स्तौति (Sanskrit) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-chant.ogg.
Cite this entry: “chant.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/chant. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.