Chaunter

Chaunt´er


n.1.A street seller of ballads and other broadsides.
2.A deceitful, tricky dealer or horse jockey.
He was a horse chaunter; he's a leg now.
- Dickens.
3.The flute of a bagpipe. See Chanter, n., 3.
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, published 1913 by G. & C. Merriam Co.
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References in classic literature ?
Plornish, having been made acquainted with the cause of action from the Defendant's own mouth, gave Arthur to understand that the Plaintiff was a 'Chaunter'--meaning, not a singer of anthems, but a seller of horses--and that he (Plornish) considered that ten shillings in the pound 'would settle handsome,' and that more would be a waste of money.
As a result, in order to bring the poem to a close at the end of a stanza, the Anglo-Norman translator inserts three unrelated lines into the middle of the prayer, including the self-referential "Pluis ne voil en tere ore de tere chaunter" (1.39), before concluding with the plea that earth be allowed to dwell in the "earth of the living." Considering the three versions as a whole, it seems that the Latin and Anglo-Norman translations are most similar to the Middle English at the beginning of the poem, diverging more and more as they progress, perhaps as the translator found it difficult to render the rhetorical flourishes of the densely alliterative and multivalent Middle English poem in another language, and finally coming back into alignment with the source text in the last stanza.
Further confirming their identity, the accounts for 1568 also record a visit 'to speke with mr Chaunter for shepertes boyes'; following Dutka, Rastall identifies 'mr Chaunter' as Sir John Genson, precentor of Chester Cathedral.
(20.) Laurinski's "native ballad chaunter" is to be given "Of Port, South African, a small decanter" while "The foreign fiddler must have the best dishes, Claret, Champagne, and anything he wishes." (4) Despite championing the Tartar cause, the play flirts with colonial ethnic attitudes.
A scenic chaunter through the trees, steadily puffing up the 700-feet incline, with table service from the attentive restaurant staff.
A reference to 'mr Chaunter' appears in 1567, when someone speaks to him about providing shepherds' boys.
As the contemporary comment suggests, pub-based performances from this ear drew on the well-practised techniques of the street ballad singer, whose craft of some centuries persisted among the hawkers or chaunters still contesting the hubbub of the modern street in their assertive appeals to a less than captive audience.(14)