Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(UK Und.) criminal, pertaining to the underworld; usu. as canting crew n.

1615		T. Overbury New and Choise Characters n.p.: [A Canting Rogue] He leaues his children all the world to Cant in, and all the people to their fathers].
1696		J. Dunton Night-Walker Oct. 6: For we laid down this Resolution, that none of those Bug-bears which canting fellows called Checks of Conscience [...] should divert us from our beloved liberty.
1715		S. Centlivre Gotham Election I i: A Parcel of canting Rogues.
1723		C. Walker Authentick Memoirs of Sally Salisbury 102: Go tell the canting, fulsome, fanatical Pimp [...] that I have given you Leave to show him the Way to my Lodging.
1734		C. Johnson Hist. of Highwaymen &c. 335: A Plague take you, says he, for a Company of canting Whores and Rogues.
1772		Bridges Burlesque Homer (3rd edn) 5: Then cease your canting sobs and groans, / And stir your stumps to save your bones.
1773		‘Geoffrey Wildgoose’ Spiritual Quixote I Bk iv 231: If it is not one of these Methodists [...] A pack of canting toads! I thought he looked like one of those hypothetical rascals.
1826		I. Pocock Woodstock I i: We are kicked out of it by crop-eared canting villains like himself.
1830		C. Lamb Pawnbrokers’s Daughter I ii: What a canting rogue it is!
1860		T. Haliburton Season Ticket 297: I hope I may never see your cantin’, cheatin’, hypocritical, lyin’ face agin.
1871		London Figaro 13 May 3, col. 2: Bill’s dead on for a lark with the canting bloke [...] [F&H].
1886		R.L. Stevenson Kidnapped 228: What kind of Whiggish, canting talk is this, for the house of Cluny Macpherson?