canton

name

Etymology: The surname is of French or Galician origin.

1. A topographical surname from French.

noun

1. A song or canto.

   “Write loyal cantons of contemnèd love / And sing them loud even in the dead of night.”

verb

Etymology: 1530s, from Middle French canton, from Old French canton (“corner”); heraldic sense from the 1570s, geographic sense from c. 1600.

1. To delineate as a separate district.
2. To divide into cantons.
3. To quarter troops by requisitioning housing from the civilian population.

   “To the end of husbanding the supplies, he will cause to be cantoned in the cities and villages the greatest possible numbers of troops”

4. To be allotted such quarters.

   “An army, falling back upon its lines of magazines, may … make its retreat with more security than one which has to canton, to subsist, and to extend itself to find cantonments.”