cancel

UK/ˈkæn.sl̩/US/ˈkæn.sl̩/

verbA23 meanings Very common — you will meet it every day · #1,624 of 15,258leans spoken

Other forms: cancelled, canceled, cancelling, canceling, cancels

To cancel something is to call off a thing that was already arranged. The 7:42 is cancelled, the lesson is cancelled because the teacher is ill, and you cancel the dentist on the morning of the appointment.

You also cancel things that would otherwise keep running: a subscription, a standing order, a membership, a contract. Two things that wipe each other out cancel out — 'the two mistakes cancel each other out'. The noun is cancellation, and the spelling splits by country: cancelled and cancelling in Britain, canceled and canceling with one L in America. To cancel a person is newer — to withdraw public support over something they said or did, which is the argument behind cancel culture. Keep postpone separate: an event moved to next month is postponed, not cancelled.

Definitions of cancel

1verbcancelTo decide that something already arranged will not happen.A2~65%
“They cancelled the match because of the ice.”
2verbendTo end an arrangement that would otherwise continue, such as a subscription or a contract.A2~33%
“I cancelled my gym membership in January.”
3verbbalanceTo balance something exactly, so that the two effects come to nothing (with 'out').B2~2%
“The gain on one side cancels out the loss on the other.”

Shares are an estimate: a language model read 15 sentences found in the wild and placed 12 of them on a sense (3 were unclear) — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.

Where it comes from

Latin cancellus was a railing or a lattice, and the verb cancellō meant making something look like one. To cancel a document was to draw crossing lines over the writing until it sat behind a grid, and the word reached English through Anglo-Norman canceler, 'to cross out with lines'.

Middle English
cancellen
English, today
cancel

Built from

cancellus · Latin — a railing or lattice
cancer · Latin — a lattice

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

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Travel & Transport, A Man Called Ove

First appears in chapter 2 of A Man Called Ove.

Practise this word

cancel in the wild

Among the most common fancy cancel designs are stars and crosses of varying designs.
Fancy cancel
The Waterbury, Connecticut post office was the master of the practice, and turned out new cancels for every holiday and special occasion.
Fancy cancel
Such subjects are said to have been "canceled".
Cancel culture
Technically, anything that can create, change, or cancel any right or law is considered a source of law.
Sources of law
Cotter did not cancel EUSO 2020 and he did not have the authority to do so.
European Olympiad of Experimental Science

1 / 3

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

the cancer family

cancer cancel cancelled

cancel — used about once every 183 pages · #1,624 · point at the bar for the others

Definitions of cancel

1verbcancelTo decide that something already arranged will not happen.A2~65%

“They cancelled the match because of the ice.”

2verbendTo end an arrangement that would otherwise continue, such as a subscription or a contract.A2~33%

“I cancelled my gym membership in January.”

3verbbalanceTo balance something exactly, so that the two effects come to nothing (with 'out').B2~2%

“The gain on one side cancels out the loss on the other.”

Shares are an estimate: a language model read 15 sentences found in the wild and placed 12 of them on a sense (3 were unclear) — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.