Cancel

Part of speech: noun (n.)

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. The suppression on striking out of matter in type, or of a printed page or pages.

3. The part thus suppressed.

Part of speech: verb (v.)

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. To suppress or omit; to strike out, as matter in type. Canceled figures (Print), figures cast with a line across the face., as for use in arithmetics.

Synonyms: blot out; Obliterate; deface; erase; efface; expunge; annul; abolish; revoke; abrogate; repeal; destroy; do away; set aside. See Abolish.