different between chancery vs cancel

English

Etymology

From French chancellerie, from Late Latin cancellaria, from Latin cancellarius, from Latin cancellus (“lattice”) (English chancel), from Latin cancelli (“grating, bars”), from the lattice-work that separated a section of a church or court.

See related chancellor and chancellery, and the more distantly related incarcerate (“put behind bars”), from carcer (“prison”).

The adverbial form is an allusion to the condition of a person involved in the chancery court.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?t????ns???/, /?t??æns???/
• (UK) IPA^(key): /?t????ns??i/, /?t??ans??i/

Noun

chancery (countable and uncountable, plural chanceries)

1. (historical) In England, formerly, the highest court of judicature next to the Parliament, exercising jurisdiction at law, but chiefly in equity; but under the jurisdiction act of 1873 it became the chancery division of the High Court of Justice, and now exercises jurisdiction only in equity.
2. In the United States, a court of equity; equity; proceeding in equity.
3. The type of building that houses a diplomatic mission or embassy.
4. The type of building that houses the offices and administration of a diocese; the offices of a diocese.
5. (historical) In the Middle Ages, a government office that produced and notarized official documents.
6. (slang) The position of a boxer's head when under his adversary's arm.
7. (slang, archaic) Any awkward predicament.

Usage notes

A court of chancery, so far as it is a court of equity, in the English and American sense, may be generally, if not precisely, described as one having jurisdiction in cases of rights, recognized and protected by the municipal or county jurisprudence, where a plain, adequate, and complete remedy can not be had in the courts of common law. In some of the American States, jurisdiction at law and in equity centers in the same tribunal. The courts of the United States also have jurisdiction both at law and in equity, and in all such cases they exercise their jurisdiction, as courts of law, or as courts of equity, as the subject of adjudication may require. In others of the American States, the courts that administer equity are distinct tribunals, having their appropriate judicial officers, and it is to the latter that the appellation courts of chancery is usually applied; but, in American law, the terms equity and court of equity are more frequently employed than the corresponding terms chancery and court of chancery.

Adverb

chancery (not comparable)

1. (boxing) With the head of an antagonist under one's arm, so that one can pommel it with the other fist at will.
2. (figuratively) In an awkward situation; wholly under the power of someone else.

Synonyms

• in chancery

See also

• Inns of Chancery

References

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