The corpus record — Latin

decanto

decanto · v. a

To sing

Generated live from the audited Latin corpus — every figure on this page is a database query, not prose from memory.

Where it lives

Oedipus 1 · 1.69/10k
Nero 1 · 1.28/10k
Epistulae 1 · 1.01/10k
Epistulae, Books VIII-IX 1 · 0.79/10k
Carmina 1 · 0.75/10k
Epistulae. Selections. 3 · 0.69/10k
De Republica 1 · 0.46/10k
Metamorphoses 2 · 0.37/10k
De Divinatione 1 · 0.36/10k
De Oratore 2 · 0.33/10k
Pharsalia 1 · 0.2/10k
Tusculanae Disputationes 1 · 0.18/10k

Densest 12 of 19 attested works shown, by occurrences per 10,000 attested tokens.

What it meant

dē-canto — Lewis & Short

dē-canto, āvi, ātum, 1, v. a. (in the class. per. freq. in Cic.; elsewh. rare).

I To sing a thing off, to repeat in a singing manner (v. cano and canto).

A Usually with the secondary idea of something trite, worn out, absurd; to repeat often, to say over and over again ( = semper repetere, in ore habere; cf. cantilena): nec mihi opus est Graeco aliquo doctore, qui mihi pervulgata praecepta decantet, Cic. de Or. 2, 18, 75: causas, id. ib. 2, 32, 140; id. Fin. 4, 4, 10; id. Att. 13, 34; Quint. 12, 8, 3; Hor. Ep. 1, 1, 64 al.—

B Without this unfavorable idea: miserabiles elegos, Hor. Od. 1, 33, 3: *(/alwsin Ilii in scenico habitu, to recite, rehearse, * Suet. Ner. 38: tribus, to proclaim, Luc. 5, 394.—

C Esp., to repeat as a charm, and hence to bewitch, enchant, charm: nullo decantatus carmine, App. M. 3, p. 138, 35: verbis et amplexibus aliquem, id. ib. 5, p. 165, 6; id. ib. 3, p. 137, 12; Vulg. Isa. 54, 1 al.—

II Intr.

A (Acc. to de, no. II. 2. b.) To leave off singing: jam decantaverant ( = cantare, deplorare desierant), had given over lamenting, Cic. Tusc. 3, 22, 53.—

B To play (upon an instrument): decantandi jus tibicinibus ademit, Aur. Vict. Vir. Illust. 34, 1.

In the wild

decantes Sidonius Apollinaris, Epistulae, Books VIII-IX 9.XV
decantata Horace, Epistulae 1.1.64
decantaret Bede, Historiam ecclesiasticam gentis Anglorum 3.27.p2
decanto Cicero, De Republica 2.55
decantet Jerome, Epistulae. Selections. 128.1
decantat Seneca, Oedipus 1

6 of 23 attestations shown.

Where it came from

No etymology authority pointer is recorded for this lemma yet — an honest gap, not an omission.

Latin text and lemmatization derived from the Perseus Digital Library (canonical-latinLit), CC BY-SA 4.0. Lewis & Short (public domain) via Perseus. This derived data is shared under the same CC BY-SA 4.0 license.