cancel

English Online Dictionary. What means cancel‎? What does cancel mean?

English

Alternative forms

• cancell (obsolete)

Etymology

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”).

Pronunciation

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

Verb

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.
2. (transitive) To invalidate or annul something.

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

4. (transitive) To offset or equalize something.

5. (transitive, mathematics) To remove a common factor from both the numerator and denominator of a fraction, or from both sides of an equation.
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.
9. (slang) To kill.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:kill

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

11. (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

    • 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.

Derived terms

Descendants

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

Translations

Noun

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.
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.

Derived terms

Translations

Related terms

Further reading

• “cancel”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “cancel”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.
• “cancel”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.

Spanish

Etymology

From Old French cancel from Latin cancellus.

Pronunciation

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

Noun

cancel m (plural canceles)

1. storm door (secondary door)
2. altar rail
3. (Mexico) room divider
4. oratory window
5. (Mexico, Paraguay, Rioplatense) foyer door
6. (Ecuador) Alternative form of cancela

Further reading

• “cancel”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 2024 December 10