name, noun, verb ·Moderate ·High school level

Definitions

Noun

1. 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. 2
   One who cants or whines; a beggar.
3. 3
   a smooth three-beat gait; between a trot and a gallop wordnet
4. 4
   A ride on a horse at such speed.
5. 5
   One who makes hypocritical pretensions to goodness; one who uses canting language.

   "The days when he was a canter and a rebel."

Verb

1. 1
   To move at such pace. intransitive
2. 2
   ride at a canter wordnet
3. 3
   To cause to move at a canter; to ride (a horse) at a canter. transitive
4. 4
   cause to ride at a cantering pace wordnet
5. 5
   go at a canter, of horses wordnet

Proper Noun

1. 1
   A surname.

Synonyms

All synonyms

affecterambleboundbumburstburst of speed

Example

More examples

"This horse has a pretty canter."

Etymology

Etymology 1

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

Etymology 2

From cant + -er.

Related phrases

at a cantercounter-cantercounter-canterin a canter

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.