cancelar

Forms

cancelar (first-person singular present cancelo, first-person singular preterite cancelei, past participle cancelado)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin cancellō (“to cover with a lattice; to cross out”), first recorded in 1302 as the participle Old Galician-Portuguese cançelado.^[2][3][1] Cunha gives the original sense as “to arrange in a lattice, to cross” in the 14th century and “to annul” from the 16th.^[3] Wiktionary calls chancelar, which came through French, its doublet.^[1]

The Latin verb is formed from cancellī (“lattice, railings”).^[4][5] Its first sense was “to arrange in a criss-cross pattern”; striking out a text with crossed lines gave “to cancel”.^[4][6] That noun is a diminutive of cancer, which also meant “lattice”.^[5][7] De Vaan explains the word for “crab” as a dissimilation of an earlier *karkros (“enclosure”), the word behind carcer (“prison”).^[7]

The same Latin verb was taken into Spanish cancelar (1258–63) and Italian cancellare; French chanceler (“to totter”) is its inherited French outcome.^[6][8][9]

Semantic evolution

The first sense is the clerical one, to strike out what is written so as to make it void, and it remains the first sense in Houaiss and the DLP.^[2][10] From the 16th century the verb means more generally “to make null”.^[2][3] The modern senses “to call off a plan” and “to stop a payment or a booking” follow, and algebra uses it for removing common factors.^[2][10] A recent neologism is “to cancel” a person whose views are judged unacceptable, by public boycott.^[1][11]

Timeline

• 1302 – the participle cançelado.^[2]
• 14th century – the infinitive cancelar, in the sense “to cross out”.^[2][3]
• 16th century – first record of the sense “to annul”.^[2][3]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To strike out something written so that it has no effect: Cancelou a cláusula com dois traços.^[2][12]
2. (transitive) To make null and void; to annul, revoke.^[2][13]
3. (transitive) To call off something planned; to give up a booking: Cancelámos o jantar por causa da chuva.^[2][14]
4. (transitive) To suspend or stop something: a payment, a subscription, a cheque.^[2][11]
5. (transitive, law) To close a case.^[2][15]
6. (transitive, mathematics) To remove common factors from a fraction or terms that add up to zero from an equation.^[2]
7. (transitive, neologism) To boycott a person publicly for views or behaviour judged unacceptable.^[1][11]

Word family

• cancelamento

Related words

• cancela
• chancelar
• Latin cancellō
• Spanish cancelar

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. cancelar
3. ^ a b c d e Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. cancelar
4. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. cancelar
7. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 1572
9. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
10. ^ a b Academia das Ciências de Lisboa, Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, revised online edition (2023–) of the Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa Contemporânea (2001), https://dicionario.acad-ciencias.pt, p. s.v. cancelar
11. ^ a b c Wikcionário (Portuguese Wiktionary), pt.wiktionary.org, p. s.v. cancelar
12. ^ Michaelis: Moderno Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, São Paulo: Melhoramentos (online as Michaelis Dicionário Brasileiro da Língua Portuguesa, https://michaelis.uol.com.br), p. s.v. cancelar
13. ^ Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 1729
14. ^ Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. cancelar
15. ^ Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. cancelar