(anc. geog.) a promontory of Britain, literally denoting a head-land, giving name to a territory called Cantium, now Kent. The promontory is now called the North Foreland.

CANTO denotes a part or division of a poem, answering to what is otherwise called a book. The word is Italian, where it properly signifies song. Tasso, Ariosto, and several other Italians, have divided their longer or heroic poems into cantos. In imitation of them, Scarron has also divided his Gigantomachia, and Boileau his Letrin, into chants or songs. The like usage has been adopted by some English writers, as Butler, who divides his Hudibras, and Dr Garth his Dispensary, into cantos. A late translator of part of Virgil's Aeneid has even subdivided a book of Virgil into several cantos.