The Collaborative International Dictionary
Cantoned \Can"toned\, a.
(Her.) Having a charge in each of the four corners; -- said of a cross on a shield, and also of the shield itself.
(Arch.) Having the angles marked by, or decorated with, projecting moldings or small columns; as, a cantoned pier or pilaster.
Canton \Can"ton\, v. i. [imp. & p. p. Cantoned; p. pr. & vb. n. Cantoning.] [Cf. F.cantonner.]
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To divide into small parts or districts; to mark off or separate, as a distinct portion or division.
They canton out themselves a little Goshen in the intellectual world.
--Locke. (Mil.) To allot separate quarters to, as to different parts or divisions of an army or body of troops.
Wiktionary
1 (context heraldry English) Having a charge in each of the four corners; said of a cross on a shield, and also of the shield itself. 2 (context architecture English) Having the angles marked by, or decorated with, projecting mouldings or small columns. v
(en-past of: canton)
Usage examples of "cantoned".
The Austrian army, after their defeat at Breslau, had retired into Bohemia, where they were cantoned, the head-quarters being fixed at Koningsgratz.
The king of Prussia having cleared all his part of Silesia, except the town of Schweidnitz, which he circumscribed with a blockade, sent detachments from his army cantoned in the neighbourhood of Breslau, to penetrate into the Austrian or southern part of Silesia, where they surprised Troppau and Jaggernsdorf, while he himself remained at Breslau, entertaining his officers with concerts of music.
For these purposes he had taken possession of Dippeswalde, Maxen, and Pretchendorff, as if he intended to enter Bohemia by the way of Passberg: but this scheme being found impracticable, he returned to his camp at Fribourg, and in January the Prussian and Austrian armies were cantoned so near each other, that daily skirmishes were fought with various success.
That line extended seventy-seven miles from Burlington, New Jersey, to the Hackensack River near New York, and the troops, cantoned loosely along it, could not readily be brought together on a sudden alarm.