Definition of "discant" []

• Variant of descant. (noun)
• Variant of descant. (verb)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "After the advent of Florid Organum, the older style of note against note was referred to as "discant" organum."
• "There are two distinct textures for the polyphonic works: a “discant” style, in which the two voice parts generally move together (as in the conductus and the Benedicamus tropes), and an “organal” style in which the upper voice part sings a rhapsodic melody against the long-held notes of a lower tenor voice based on a liturgical chant (as in adiutor an the tropped Kyrie: Cunctipotens)."
• "For us, it is the most disconcerting and the most ambiguous piece in the entire Mass with its use of the old discant technique."