cancel

• cancell (obsolete)

From Middle English cancellen, from Anglo-Norman canceler (“to cross out with lines”) (modern French chanceler (“to stagger, sway”)), from Latin cancellō (“to make resemble a lattice”), from cancellus (“a railing or lattice”), diminutive of cancer (“a lattice”).

• IPA^(key): /ˈkæn.sl̩/, [ˈkɛən.sl̩ ~ ˈkeən.sl̩] (see /æ/ raising)

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

• Hyphenation: can‧cel

cancel (third-person singular simple present cancels, present participle cancelling or (US) canceling, simple past and past participle cancelled or (US) canceled)

1. (transitive) To cross out something with lines etc.
   • 1765–1769, William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, (please specify |book=I to IV), Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] Clarendon Press, →OCLC:

     A deed may be avoided by delivering it up to be cancelled; that is, to have lines drawn over it in the form of latticework or cancelli; the phrase is now used figuratively for any manner of obliterating or defacing it.

2. (transitive) To invalidate or annul something.

   Synonym: belay

   He cancelled his order on their website.

   • 1914, Marjorie Benton Cooke, Bambi:

     "I don't know what your agreement was, Herr Professor, but if it had money in it, cancel it. I want him to learn that lesson, too."

   • 2008 January 9, Michael Kimmelman, “The Legacy of a Pragmatic Custodian of Human Civilization”, in The New York Times‎^[1]:

     These also included not canceling the Christmas display, whose kitschiness drove him bonkers but which endured because people love it and because he is a populist and showman, despite his elitist veneer, and because he has a heart.

   • 2021 September 19, “The strategic reverberations of the AUKUS deal will be big and lasting”, in The Economist‎^[2]:

     AUKUS envisages a wide range of diplomatic and technological collaboration, from cybersecurity to artificial intelligence, but at its core is an agreement to start consultations to help Australia acquire a fleet of nuclear-propelled (though not nuclear-armed) submarines. One consequence of this is Australia cancelling a contract, worth tens of billions of dollars, signed in 2016 with France for diesel-electric submarines. In announcing AUKUS on September 15th with the prime ministers of Australia and Britain, Scott Morrison and Boris Johnson, President Joe Biden stressed that it was about “investing in our greatest source of strength—our alliances”.

3. (transitive) To mark something (such as a used postage stamp) so that it can't be reused.

   This machine cancels the letters that have a valid zip code.

4. (transitive) To offset or equalize something.

   The corrective feedback mechanism cancels out the noise.

5. (transitive, mathematics) To remove a common factor from both the numerator and denominator of a fraction, or from both sides of an equation.
   • 2003, Gordana Matić, Clint McCrory, Topology and geometry of manifolds‎^[3], →ISBN, page 182:

     Such a 2-handle cancels the 1-handle so the manifold is D⁴.

6. (transitive, media) To stop production of a programme.
7. (printing, dated) To suppress or omit; to strike out, as matter in type.
8. (obsolete) To shut out, as with a railing or with latticework; to exclude.
   • 1667, John Milton, “Book VI”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC:

     cancelled from heaven

9. (slang) To kill.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:kill

   (The addition of quotations indicative of this usage is being sought:)

10. (transitive, neologism) To cease to provide financial or moral support to (someone deemed unacceptable); to disinvite. Compare cancel culture.

    Synonyms: blacklist, deplatform; see also Thesaurus:boycott

    • 2018 June 28, Jonah Engel Bromwich, “Everyone Is Canceled”, in The New York Times‎^[4]:

      Bill Gates is canceled. Gwen Stefani and Erykah Badu are canceled. Despite his relatively strong play in the World Cup, Cristiano Ronaldo has been canceled. Taylor Swift is canceled and Common is canceled and, Wednesday, Antoni Porowski, a “Queer Eye” fan favorite was also canceled. Needless to say, Kanye West is canceled, too.

    • 2019 May 17, Christopher Hooton, “We Spoke to Joan Cornellá, the Artist Who Really Should Have Been Cancelled By Now”, in VICE‎^[5]:

      We Spoke to Joan Cornellá, the Artist Who Really Should Have Been Cancelled By Now [title]

    • 2020 February 5, Russell Haythorn, “An explanation of ‘cancel culture’ and why it's become such a popular phenomenon”, in The Denver Channel‎^[6]:

      You may have never heard the term "cancel culture," but you certainly know some of the faces who have been canceled. Everyone from Cosby to Matt Lauer.

    • 2020 July 3, Kristi Noem speech at Mount Rushmore transcribed by C-SPAN[7]:

      To attempt to cancel the founding generation is an attempt to cancel our own freedoms.

    • 2022 June 21, Agnes Callard, “If I Get Canceled, Let Them Eat Me Alive”, in The New York Times‎^[8], →ISSN:

      So this is my answer: If I am being canceled, I want my friends — and this includes not only my closest associates but any people who consider themselves friendly to me — to stand by, remain silent and do nothing. If you care about me, let them eat me alive.

• → German: canceln
• → Gulf Arabic: كنسل (kansal)
• → Welsh: canslo

cancel (plural cancels)

1. (US) A cancellation.
   1. A control message posted to Usenet that serves to cancel a previously posted message.
2. (obsolete) An enclosure; a boundary; a limit.
   • 1678, Antiquitates Christianæ: Or, the History of the Life and Death of the Holy Jesus: […], London: […] E. Flesher, and R. Norton, for R[ichard] Royston, […], →OCLC:

     A prison is but a retirement, and opportunity of serious thoughts, to a person whose spirit […] desires no enlargement beyond the cancels of the body.

3. (printing) The suppression on striking out of matter in type, or of a printed page or pages.
4. (printing) The page thus suppressed.
5. (printing) The page that replaces it.

• “cancel”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• “cancel”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.
• “cancel”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.

• IPA^(key): (Spain) /kanˈθel/ [kãn̟ˈθel]
• IPA^(key): (Latin America, Philippines) /kanˈsel/ [kãnˈsel]
• Rhymes: -el
• Syllabification: can‧cel

cancel m (plural canceles)

1. partition; wall

• “cancel”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.7, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 2023 November 28