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Cancer vs Cancel - What's the difference?

cancer | cancel |

As nouns the difference between cancer and cancel

is that cancer is a disease in which the cells of a tissue undergo uncontrolled (and often rapid) proliferation while cancel is a cancellation (US); (nonstandard in some kinds of English).

As a proper noun Cancer

is a constellation of the zodiac supposedly shaped like a crab.

As a verb cancel is

to cross out something with lines etc.

cancer

English

* (wikipedia "cancer")

Noun

(en noun)
  • (medicine, oncology, disease) A disease in which the cells of a tissue undergo uncontrolled (and often rapid) proliferation.
  • * {{quote-book, year=2006, author=(Edwin Black)
  • , title=Internal Combustion , chapter=1 citation , passage=If successful, Edison and Ford—in 1914—would move society away from the
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-22, volume=407, issue=8841, page=76, magazine=(The Economist)
  • , title= Snakes and ladders , passage=Risk is everywhere. From tabloid headlines insisting that coffee causes cancer (yesterday, of course, it cured it) to stern government warnings about alcohol and driving, the world is teeming with goblins. For each one there is a frighteningly precise measurement of just how likely it is to jump from the shadows and get you.}}
  • (figuratively) Something which spreads within something else, damaging the latter.
  • {{quote-book, year=1999, author=Bruce Clifford Ross-Larson, title=Effective Writing, page=134 citation
    , passage=Sierra Leone's post-dictator problems are almost absurd in their breadth. It once exported rice; now it can't feed itself. The life span of the average citizen is 39, the shortest in Africa. Unemployment stands at 87 percent and tuberculosis is spreading out of control. Corruption, brazen and ubiquitous, is a cancer on the economy.}}

    Synonyms

    * (disease) growth, malignancy, neoplasia * (something which spreads) lichen

    Hyponyms

    * tumor * leukaemia, leukemia

    Derived terms

    (types of cancer) * bowel cancer * breast cancer * colon cancer * leukemia * testicular cancer * lung cancer * prostate cancer * ovarian cancer * skin cancer * cervical cancer

    See also

    * malignant

    Anagrams

    * ----

    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.