different between cancel vs annihilate

English

Alternative forms

• cancell (obsolete)

Etymology

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

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?kænsl?/
• Hyphenation: can?cel

Verb

cancel (third-person singular simple present cancels, present participle cancelling or (US) canceling, simple past and past participle cancelled or (US) canceled)

1. (transitive) To cross out something with lines etc.

   • 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.

2. (transitive) To invalidate or annul something.

   He cancelled his order on their website.

   • 1914, Marjorie Benton Cooke, Bambi

     "I don't know what your agreement was, Herr Professor, but if it had money in it, cancel it. I want him to learn that lesson, too."

3. (transitive) To mark something (such as a used postage stamp) so that it can't be reused.

   This machine cancels the letters that have a valid zip code.

4. (transitive) To offset or equalize something.

   The corrective feedback mechanism cancels out the noise.

5. (transitive, mathematics) To remove a common factor from both the numerator and denominator of a fraction, or from both sides of an equation.
6. (transitive, media) To stop production of a programme.
7. (printing, dated) To suppress or omit; to strike out, as matter in type.
8. (obsolete) To shut out, as with a railing or with latticework; to exclude.
9. (slang) To kill.

   (The addition of quotations indicative of this usage is being sought:)

10. (transitive, neologism) To cease to provide financial or moral support to (someone deemed unacceptable). Compare cancel culture.
    • 2018, Jonah Engel Bromwich, in The New York Times [1]

    • 2019, Christopher Hooton, in VICE [2]

    • 2020 July 3, Kristi Noem speech at Mount Rushmore transcribed by C-SPAN[4]:

      To attempt to cancel the founding generation is an attempt to cancel our own freedoms.

Synonyms

• (invalidate or annul): belay
• (kill): take care of; see also Thesaurus:kill
• (cease supporting someone deemed unacceptable): blacklist; see also Thesaurus:boycott

Derived terms

• autocancel
• cancel someone's Christmas
• cancel out
• canceler
• recancel
• cancelable
• precancel
• uncancel

Descendants

• ? Gulf Arabic: ????? (kansal)
• ? Welsh: canslo

Translations

Noun

cancel (plural cancels)

1. A cancellation (US); (nonstandard in some kinds of English).
   1. (Internet) A control message posted to Usenet that serves to cancel a previously posted message.
2. (obsolete) An enclosure; 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.

3. (printing) The suppression on striking out of matter in type, or of a printed page or pages.
4. (printing) The page thus suppressed.
5. (printing) The page that replaces it.

Derived terms

• autocancel
• dumb cancel
• killer cancel
• mute cancel
• precancel

Translations

Related terms

• chancel
• cancellation
• chancellery
• chancellor
• chancery

Further reading

• cancel in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• cancel in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• cancel at OneLook Dictionary Search

Spanish

Noun

cancel m (plural canceles)

1. partition; wall

English

Etymology

From Latin annihil? (“I reduce to nothing”), from ad (“to”) + nihil (“nothing”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /??na??.le?t/

Verb

annihilate (third-person singular simple present annihilates, present participle annihilating, simple past and past participle annihilated)

1. To reduce to nothing, to destroy, to eradicate.

   An atom bomb can annihilate a whole city.

2. (particle physics) To react with antimatter, producing gamma radiation and (for higher-mass reactants, especially composite particles such as protons) lighter particles (such as pions, muons, and neutrinos).
3. (archaic) To treat as worthless, to vilify.
4. (transitive) To render null and void; to abrogate.

Synonyms

• (to reduce to nothing): benothing, destroy, eradicate, extinguish
• See also Thesaurus:destroy

Antonyms

• (to reduce to nothing): create, generate

Related terms

Translations

Further reading

• annihilate in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• annihilate in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

Latin

Verb

annihil?te

1. second-person plural present active imperative of annihil?