cancel Meaning, Definition & Usage

  1. noun a notation cancelling a previous sharp or flat
    natural.
  2. verb postpone indefinitely or annul something that was scheduled
    scratch; scrub; call off.
    • Call off the engagement
    • cancel the dinner party
    • we had to scrub our vacation plans
    • scratch that meeting--the chair is ill
  3. verb make up for
    set off; offset.
    • His skills offset his opponent's superior strength
  4. verb declare null and void; make ineffective
    strike down.
    • Cancel the election results
    • strike down a law
  5. verb remove or make invisible
    delete.
    • Please delete my name from your list
  6. verb make invalid for use
    invalidate.
    • cancel cheques or tickets

WordNet

Can"cel intransitive verb
Etymology
L. cancellare to make like a lattice, to strike or cross out (cf. Fr. canceller, OF. canceler) fr. cancelli lattice, crossbars, dim. of cancer lattice; cf. Gr. latticed gate. Cf. Chancel.
Wordforms
imperfect & past participle Canceled ∨ Cancelled ; present participle & verbal noun Canceling ∨ Cancelling
Definitions
  1. To inclose or surround, as with a railing, or with latticework. Obs.
    A little obscure place canceled in with iron work is the pillar or stump at which . . . our Savior was scourged. Evelyn.
  2. To shut out, as with a railing or with latticework; to exclude. Obs. "Canceled from heaven." Milton.
  3. To cross and deface, as the lines of a writing, or as a word or figure; to mark out by a cross line; to blot out or obliterate.
    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. Blackstone.
  4. To annul or destroy; to revoke or recall.
    The indentures were canceled. Thackeray.
    He was unwilling to cancel the interest created through former secret services, by being refractory on this occasion. Sir W. Scott.
  5. (Print.) To suppress or omit; to strike out, as matter in type. Syn. -- To blot out; Obliterate; deface; erase; efface; expunge; annul; abolish; revoke; abrogate; repeal; destroy; do away; set aside. See Abolish.
Can"cel noun
Etymology
See Cancel, v. i., and cf. Chancel.
Definitions
  1. An inclosure; a boundary; a limit. Obs.
    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. Jer. Taylor.
  2. (Print) (a) The suppression on striking out of matter in type, or of a printed page or pages. (b) The part thus suppressed.

Webster 1913