Canting arms
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 was derived from the Anglo-Norman cant, meaning song or singing.

French heralds used the term armes parlantes (), 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 the Society for Creative Anachronism heralds is the pun, "Heralds don't pun; they cant."

Examples of canting arms

Personal coat of arms 
A famous example of canting arms are those of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother (consort of King George VI of the United Kingdom). Her arms (pictured below) contain in sinister (i.e. on the bearer's left, viewer's right) the bows and blue lions that make up the arms of the Bowes and Lyon families.

Municipal coat of arms 
Municipal coats of arms which interpret the town's name in rebus form are also called canting. Here are a few examples.

Ecclesiastical coats of arms

Notes