cancel

1. When a television program no longer receives enough viewers as they want it to have, the television network that is broadcasting the tv show will decide to cease purchasing additional episodes of the program. When this happens a show is "cancelled." In some cases a cancelled show may continue on as a privately sold program in Syndication. One example of this is the tv program "Baywatch."


2. Colloquially, when an insurance company decides to refuse to renew coverage on someone, typically with automobile insurance, it is said that the insurer has "cancelled" their insurance. Technically, insurance is only "cancelled" if an insurer immediately notifies someone that they are terminating coverage.


3. When a message, also known as an article is posted to a Usenet news group and subsequently the poster wishes to revoke or take back the message, they send a cancel request to have the message cancelled.


4. When an item of value such as a check or a ticket has been redeemed for the face value or otherwise used, the item is marked non-reusable or "cancelled."

Computer games often fall victim to cancellations, even more frequently than tv programs or insurance. Especially gigantic software companies like EA or Sierra On-Line are notorious for cancelling projects that have been in production for several months, causing grief and disheartenment to those who were working diligently on them. Such projects as the Babylon 5 games, a Tolkien-based game called Middle Earth, and the Warcraft adventure game had to lay down their lives for this ungodly and inexplicable fling of management.

Can"cel (?), v. i. [Imp. & p. p. Canceled ∨ [Cancelled[ (); p. pr. & vb. n. Canceling ∨ Cancelling.] [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.]

1.

To inclose or surround, as with a railing, or with latticework.

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.

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.

Canceled figures Print, figures cast with a line across the face., as for use in arithmetics.

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

© Webster 1913.

Can"cel, n. [See Cancel, v. i., and cf. Chancel.]

1.

An inclosure; a boundary; a limit.

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.

The part thus suppressed.

© Webster 1913.