chaunting

Updated: May 16, 2025

The damsels still remain, like Shakspeare's plaintive maid, 'in single blessedness. They do not, however, like her, spend gloomy nights Chaunting cold hymns to the pale, lifeless moon, but in singing sprightlier roundelays to livelier auditors."

Hannah More - Coelebs In Search of a Wife

Her voice crackled like burning timber, and sputtered in groans that would have been fanged curses had breath not failed her: for my aunt Elinor possessed a nimble tongue, whetted, as rumor had it, by the attendance of divers Sabbats, and the chaunting of such songs as honest men may not hear and live, however highly the succubi and warlocks and were-cats, and Satan's courtiers generally, commend them.

James Branch Cabell - The Line of Love: Dizain des Mariages

While she was wondering at this unwonted minstrelsy, there came a silence, and could she believe her ears? it certainly was Una's clear low contralto softly singing a bar or two from the window. Then once more silence and then again the strange manly voice, faintly chaunting from the leafy abyss. With a strange wild feeling of suspicion and terror, Alice glided to the window.

Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu - J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 2

Hence, if either poetry or prose be read in melodious tones of voice, as is done in recitativo, or in chaunting, it must depend on the speaker, not on the writer: for though words may be selected which are less harsh than others, that is, which have fewer sudden stops or abrupt consonants amongst the vowels, or with fewer sibilant letters, yet this does not constitute melody, which consists of agreeable successions of notes referrable to the gamut; or harmony, which consists of agreeable combinations of them.

Erasmus Darwin - The Botanic Garden. Part II.: Containing the Loves of the Plants. a Poem.: With Philosophical Notes.

As he approached the door, he heard from the window, partially opened, for the day was clear and fine, Fanny's sweet voice. She was chaunting one of the simple songs she had promised to learn by heart; and Vaudemont, though but a poor judge of the art, was struck and affected by the music of the voice and the earnest depth of the feeling. He paused opposite the window and called her by her name.

Baron Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton - Night and Morning, Volume 5