Can"cel, n. [See Cancel,
v. i., and cf. Chancel.]
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 or striking out of matter in type, or of a printed
page or pages. (b) The part thus
suppressed.
Can"cel (?), v. i. [imp. &
p. p. Canceled or Cancelled (?);
p. pr. & vb. n. Canceling or
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. [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; though 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.