descant

plural descants · alternative archaic discant

1. A lengthy discourse on a subject.

   Upon that simplest of themes how magnificent a descant!

   1828, Thomas De Quincey, “Elements of Rhetoric”, in Blackwood's Magazine

2. entertainmentA counterpoint melody sung or played above the theme.

present singular third person descants · participle present descanting · participle past descanted · past descanted · alternative archaic discant

1. intransitiveTo discuss at length.

   Involving some interesting, intellectual trips, she was descanting lightly to right and left.

   1919, Ronald Firbank, Valmouth, Duckworth, page 121

   3 more examples

   […] Samballat gaue his daughter Nicaſo to Manaſſes, the brother of Iaddus the High Prieſt, in the time of Darius the laſt Perſian Monarch. This Nehemia mentioneth, but deigneth not to name him, affirming that he chaſed him from him, of vvhich ſome deſcant vvhether it vvere by exile, or excommunication, or ſome other puniſhment.

   1613, Samuel Purchas, “[Asia.] Of the Samaritans.”, in Purchas His Pilgrimage. Or Relations of the World and the Religions Observed in All Ages and Places Discouered, from the Creation vnto this Present. […], London: […] William Stansby for Henrie Fetherstone, […], →OCLC, book II [Of the Hebrew Nation and Religion from the Beginning thereof to Our Time], page 130

   [B]ut shun the establishment of a bachelor who has hung a pendulum between temptation and prudence till the age of———but of all subjects, age is the one on which it is most invidious to descant.

   1831, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XIV, in Romance and Reality. […], volume I, London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, pages 128–129

   This is a surprise attack, and I'd no wish that the garrison, forewarned, should escape. I am sure, Lord Stranleigh, that he has been descanting on the distraction of the woods and the camp, or perhaps the metropolitan dissipation of Philadelphia, […]

   1913, Robert Barr, chapter 4, in Lord Stranleigh Abroad

2. intransitiveentertainmentTo sing or play a descant.