Etymologically
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cancellatio

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Forms

cancellātiō f (genitive cancellātiōnis); third declension[1][2]

Etymology

It is from Latin cancellō + -tiō, from the verb for marking out in a lattice.[1][3] Köbler refers it to cancellus (“lattice”).[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is a term of the Roman land surveyors.[3][5] The Liber coloniarum, which Köbler dates to the 5th century, says of a field that it was assigned in a cancellātiō with boundaries running to the sea.[3][4]

Semantic evolution

Siculus Flaccus lists it among the names for the plan of a divided field, beside pertica, centuriātiō, mētātiō and līmitātiō.[5][3] It meant land measurement by means of a grid and, more loosely, the fixing of boundaries.[1][6]

In medieval Latin it took the senses of the verb cancellō.[7][8] It was a crossing, especially of the hands in blessing, after the patriarch Jacob: Arno of Reichersberg writes of it in the 12th century.[7][4] It was also a cruciform shape,[8] and, above all, the crossing out of writing: an English record of 1223 and a German charter of 1266 use it so.[8][7] Hungarian and Polish sources have the same sense,[9][10] and Stelten glosses it “a folding; crossing out”.[11]

Timeline

  • 5th century AD – The Liber coloniarum uses it of a field assigned by grid.[3][4]
  • 1163–1165 – Arno of Reichersberg uses it of the crossing of Jacob's hands.[7][4]
  • 1223 – An English record uses it of crossing out.[8]
  • 1266 – A charter is described as having no cancellation or flaw.[7]

Meanings

Noun

  1. (land surveying) The division of land by a grid; the fixing of boundaries, land measurement.[1][6][2]
  2. (Medieval Latin) A crossing (of the hands, in blessing); a cruciform shape.[7][8]
  3. (Medieval Latin) A crossing out, cancellation (of writing).[8][7][11]

References

  1. ^ a b c d Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  2. ^ a b Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
  3. ^ a b c d e Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
  4. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
  5. ^ a b du Cange, Charles du Fresne, et al. (1883–1887), Glossarium mediae et infimae latinitatis, augmented ed. by Léopold Favre, Niort: L. Favre
  6. ^ a b Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  7. ^ a b c d e f g Mittellateinisches Wörterbuch bis zum ausgehenden 13. Jahrhundert (1967–), Munich: C. H. Beck; Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
  8. ^ a b c d e f Latham, R. E., D. R. Howlett, R. K. Ashdowne, et al. (1975–2013), Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources, London: British Academy / Oxford University Press
  9. ^ Bartal, Antal, et al. (1987–), Lexicon Latinitatis Medii Aevi Hungariae, Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó; online ed. ELTE
  10. ^ Lexicon mediae et infimae Latinitatis Polonorum (1953–), Kraków: Instytut Języka Polskiego PAN; electronic ed. elexicon.scriptores.pl
  11. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson