levant

plural levants

1. A disappearing or absconding after losing a bet.

present singular third person levants · participle present levanting · participle past levanted · past levanted

1. To abscond or run away, especially to avoid paying money or debts.

   He died of a Tuesday. Got the run. Levanted with the cash of a few ads.

   1922 February 2, James Joyce, Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company […], →OCLC

   1 more example

   In a mighty little time their husbands played them false and, taking whatever they could lay hands upon, levanted and left them in the lurch.

   1885, Sir Richard Burton, The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Night 16

1. not comparablegovernmentRising, of an animal.

   Crest, a stag regardant levant argent.

   1932, Notes & Queries for Somerset and Dorset

   2 more examples

   [...] crest a raven levant sable issant out of a[…]

   1977, Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and Natural History, Proceedings

   [...] neck grene acornes proper wounded on his left sholder and at her feet there is a fawcon issant levant argent out of a crowne or.

   1980, Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and History, Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and History

2. not comparablelawRising or having risen from rest; said of cattle.
3. not comparablepoeticEastern.

   Forth rush the levant and the ponent winds.

   1667, John Milton, “Book IX”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC

   Synonyms: oriental, eastern · Antonyms: occidental, western, ponent

1. A cultural region of West Asia, consisting of the countries bordering the eastern Mediterranean Sea, namely Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Israel, Jordan and Cyprus (and sometimes, especially in a historical context, also including Turkey and Egypt, then part of the Ottoman Empire).

   I see by the newspapers that the Mediterranean Fleet is leaving Malta for the Levant.

   1948 October, Winston S[pencer] Churchill, The Gathering Storm (The Second World War), Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin, →OCLC, book I (From War to War: 1919–1939), page 171

   Synonyms: Mashreq, Greater Syria

1. A place in the United States:
   1. A census-designated place in Thomas County, Kansas.
   2. A town in Penobscot County, Maine.

plural Levants

1. An easterly wind, generally in the western Mediterranean Sea.

   Synonyms: levanter

2. A type of leather.

   [I]t was bound by G. Levitsky […] in turquoise Levant, stamped back and front with the Crosby crest in gold.

   1976, Geoffrey Wolff, Black Sun, New York Review of Books, published 2003, page 173