Etymology From Middle English cantle, cantel, from Old Northern French cantel, Old French chantel (Modern French chanteau, Bourguignon chainteâ), from Medieval Latin cantellus, diminutive of Latin cantus (“corner”). Compare cant (Etymology 3). Kroonen instead connects this term with Dutch kant (“side; edge”) and German Kanz (“mane, upper part of the neck”), deriving them from a Proto-Germanic *kantaz (“side (of the head?); cheek”), connecting it to the Baltic words Lithuanian žandas (“cheek, jaw”) and Latvian zuods (“chin, jaw”), all from a hypothetical Proto-Indo-European *ǵond-o-.
1
Obsolete A splinter, slice, or sliver broken off something.
See how this river comes me cranking in, / And cuts me from the best of all my land / A huge half-moon, a monstrous cantle out., Act III, Scene i
Their armors forged were of metal frail; / On every side thereof huge cantles flies; / The land was strewed all with plate and mail, / That on the earth, on that their warm blood lies.1600, Edward Fairfax (tr.), The Jerusalem Delivered of Tasso, Book VI, xlviii
1 more example
In one cantle of his law.1643, J[ohn] M[ilton], The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce: […], London: […] T[homas] P[aine] and M[atthew] S[immons] […], →OCLC:
2
The raised back of a saddle.
He recognised a horse when he saw one, and could do more than fill a cantle.1888, Rudyard Kipling, “The Arrest of Lieutenant Golightly”, in Plain Tales from the Hills, Folio, published 2005, page 93:
Next day, he returned with a camel-saddle of equal beauty, the long brass horns of its cantles adorned with exquisite old Yemeni engraving.1926, T. E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom:
1 more example
The traps were packed in the splitwillow basket that his father wore with the shoulderstraps loosed so that the bottom of the basket carried on the cantle of the saddle behind him.1994, Cormac McCarthy, The Crossing:
Scotland On many styles of sporran, a metal arc along the top of the pouch, usually fronting the clasp.
cantle
verb
Etymology From Middle English cantle, cantel, from Old Northern French cantel, Old French chantel (Modern French chanteau, Bourguignon chainteâ), from Medieval Latin cantellus, diminutive of Latin cantus (“corner”). Compare cant (Etymology 3). Kroonen instead connects this term with Dutch kant (“side; edge”) and German Kanz (“mane, upper part of the neck”), deriving them from a Proto-Germanic *kantaz (“side (of the head?); cheek”), connecting it to the Baltic words Lithuanian žandas (“cheek, jaw”) and Latvian zuods (“chin, jaw”), all from a hypothetical Proto-Indo-European *ǵond-o-.