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Reduce vs Cancel - What's the difference?

reduce | cancel |

In lang=en terms the difference between reduce and cancel

is that reduce is to bring to an inferior state or condition while cancel is to offset or equalize something.

In mathematics|lang=en terms the difference between reduce and cancel

is that reduce is (mathematics) to simplify an equation or formula without changing its value while cancel is (mathematics) to remove a common factor from both the numerator and denominator of a fraction, or from both sides of an equation.

As verbs the difference between reduce and cancel

is that reduce is to bring down the size, quantity, quality, value or intensity of something; to diminish, to lower, to impair while cancel is to cross out something with lines etc.

As a noun cancel is

a cancellation (us ); (nonstandard in some kinds of english).

reduce

English

Verb

  • To bring down the size, quantity, quality, value or intensity of something; to diminish, to lower, to impair.
  • * to reduce weight, speed, heat, expenses, price, personnel etc.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2012-01
  • , author=Stephen Ledoux , title=Behaviorism at 100 , volume=100, issue=1, page=60 , magazine= citation , passage=Becoming more aware of the progress that scientists have made on behavioral fronts can reduce the risk that other natural scientists will resort to mystical agential accounts when they exceed the limits of their own disciplinary training.}}
  • To lose weight.
  • To bring to an inferior rank; to degrade, to demote.
  • * to reduce a sergeant to the ranks
  • * An ancient but reduced family. --.
  • * Nothing so excellent but a man may fasten upon something belonging to it, to reduce it. --.
  • * Having reduced their foe to misery beneath their fears. -- .
  • * Hester Prynne was shocked at the condition to which she found the clergyman reduced . --.
  • *
  • Neither [Jones] nor I (in 1966) could conceive of reducing our "science" to the ultimate absurdity of reading Finnish newspapers almost a century and a half old in order to establish "priority."
  • To humble; to conquer; to subdue; to capture.
  • * to reduce a province or a fort
  • To bring to an inferior state or condition.
  • * to reduce a city to ashes
  • (cooking) To decrease the liquid content of food by boiling much of its water off.
  • (chemistry) To add electrons / hydrogen or to remove oxygen.
  • (metallurgy) To produce metal from ore by removing nonmetallic elements in a smelter.
  • (mathematics) To simplify an equation or formula without changing its value.
  • (legal) To convert to written form (Usage note: this verb almost always take the phrase "to writing").
  • * It is important that all business contracts be reduced to writing.
  • (medicine) To perform a reduction; to restore a fracture or dislocation to the correct alignment.
  • (military) To reform a line or column from (a square).
  • Synonyms

    * (to bring down) cut, decrease, lower

    Antonyms

    * (to bring down) increase

    See also

    * reducing agent

    References

    * ----

    cancel

    English

    Alternative forms

    * cancell (obsolete)

    Verb

  • To cross out something with lines etc.
  • * Blackstone
  • 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.
  • 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."
  • 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.
  • To offset or equalize something.
  • The corrective feedback mechanism cancels out the noise.
  • (mathematics) To remove a common factor from both the numerator and denominator of a fraction, or from both sides of an equation.
  • (media) To stop production of a programme.
  • (printing, dated) To suppress or omit; to strike out, as matter in type.
  • (obsolete) To shut out, as with a railing or with latticework; to exclude.
  • * Milton
  • cancelled from heaven
  • (slang) To kill.
  • Synonyms

    *

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A cancellation (US ); (nonstandard in some kinds of English).
  • # (Internet) A control message posted to Usenet that serves to cancel a previously posted message.
  • (obsolete) An inclosure; a boundary; a limit.
  • A prison is but a retirement, and opportunity of serious thoughts, to a person whose spiritdesires no enlargement beyond the cancels of the body. — Jeremy Taylor.
  • (printing) The suppression on striking out of matter in type, or of a printed page or pages.