What is "descanting"

Usage examples of "descanting".

Mounted on the fore-shrouds, they scanned the movements of their coveted prey in the distance, freely descanting upon the profit to be made out of a good finback and declaring that it would be a thousand pities if this chance of filling the casks below should be permitted to be lost.

Significant smiles and a rising him of voices descanting on the affair in a way not at all complimentary to the crestfallen Chints family, followed the disappearances of all the actors in the unexpected scene.

He presented me himself to the prelate as a jewel highly prized by himself, and as if he had been the only person worthy of descanting upon its beauty.

But she talked on about the scenery, about the weather descanting on the pleasure of living where such loveliness was within reach.

The call note arises out of imitation, and then the various bird songs are developed by repeating the single call note and descanting upon it.

He saw that she demanded that he should have a purpose and aim in life, and he skilfully met this requirement by frequently descanting on aesthetic culture as the great lever which could move the world, and by suggesting that the great question of his future was how he could best bring this culture to the people.

Here the leitmotif was Iranian, with M-and-M leading a now-zombielike Marvin through the rooms of the former "spy nest," pointing out various telex machines and descanting upon their counterrevolutionary functions.

Although she only spoke the truth when she said that her whole life was bound up with him, and although she proved it her life long, we considered such unrestrained, continual insistence upon her affection for him bad form, and felt more ashamed for her when she was descanting thus before strangers even than we did when she was perpetrating bad blunders in French.