What is "canting arms"

Canting \Cant"ing\, a. Speaking in a whining tone of voice; using technical or religious terms affectedly; affectedly pious; as, a canting rogue; a canting tone. -- Cant"ing*ly, adv. -- Cant"ing*ness, n.

Canting arms, Canting heraldry (Her.), bearings in the nature of a rebus alluding to the name of the bearer. Thus, the Castletons bear three castles, and Pope Adrian IV. (Nicholas Breakspeare) bore a broken spear.

Canting arms are heraldic bearings that represent the bearer's name (or, less often, some attribute or function) in a visual pun or rebus. The term cant came into the English language from Anglo-Norman cant, meaning song or singing, from Latin cantāre, and English cognates include canticle, chant, accent, incantation and recant.

French heralds used the term Armes Parlantes ("Talking Arms"), as they would sound out the name of the armiger. Many armorial allusions require research for elucidation because of changes in language and dialect that have occurred over the past millennium.

Canting arms – some in the form of rebuses – are quite common in German civic heraldry. They have also been increasingly used in the 20th century among the British royal family. When the visual representation is not straightforward but as complex as a rebus, this is sometimes called a rebus coat of arms. An in-joke among Society for Creative Anachronism heralds is the pun, "Heralds don't pun; they cant."