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descant |
Also found in: Dictionary/thesaurus, Wikipedia, Hutchinson | 0.31 sec. |
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descant Music 1. a decorative counterpoint added above a basic melody 2. of or pertaining to the highest member in common use of a family of musical instruments |
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| Both the parents died before the Restoration, leaving the little girl to the care of her pious grandmother, la vicomtesse, who survived, in a feeble old age, to descant on the former grandeur of her house, and to sigh, in common with so many others, for le bon vieux temps. I may add, without vanity, that my presence often gave them sufficient matter for discourse, because it afforded my master an occasion of letting his friends into the history of me and my country, upon which they were all pleased to descant, in a manner not very advantageous to humankind: and for that reason I shall not repeat what they said; only I may be allowed to observe, that his honour, to my great admiration, appeared to understand the nature of YAHOOS much better than myself. “And I could weep “—th’ Oneida chief His descant wildly thus begun—” But that I may not stain with grief The death-song of my father’s son. |
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