Idle vs Cancel - What's the difference?
idle | cancel |
(lb) Empty, vacant.
Not turned to appropriate use; not occupied.
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Not engaged in any occupation or employment; unemployed; inactive; doing nothing.
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*:Molly the dairymaid came a little way from the rickyard, and said she would pluck the pigeon that very night after work. She was always ready to do anything for us boys; and we could never quite make out why they scolded her so for an idle hussy indoors. It seemed so unjust. Looking back, I recollect she had very beautiful brown eyes.
Averse to work, labor or employment; lazy; slothful.
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*:“I don't mean all of your friends—only a small proportion—which, however, connects your circle with that deadly, idle , brainless bunch—the insolent chatterers at the opera, the gorged dowagers, the worn-out, passionless men, the enervated matrons of the summer capital,!”
Of no importance; useless; worthless; vain; trifling; thoughtless; silly.
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(lb) Light-headed; foolish.
:(Ford)
To spend in idleness; to waste; to consume.
To lose or spend time doing nothing, or without being employed in business.
* 1939 , Joan Evans, Chateaubriand (page 32)
Of an engine: to run at a slow speed, or out of gear; to tick over.
To cross out something with lines etc.
* Blackstone
To invalidate or annul something.
* 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.
To offset or equalize something.
(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
(slang) To kill.
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.
(printing) The suppression on striking out of matter in type, or of a printed page or pages.
In lang=en terms the difference between idle and cancel
is that idle is of an engine: to run at a slow speed, or out of gear; to tick over while cancel is to offset or equalize something.As verbs the difference between idle and cancel
is that idle is to spend in idleness; to waste; to consume while cancel is to cross out something with lines etc.As an adjective idle
is (lb) empty, vacant.As a noun cancel is
a cancellation (us ); (nonstandard in some kinds of english).idle
English
(wikipedia idle)Adjective
(en adjective)Derived terms
* idle hands are the devil's workshop * idle pulley * idle wheelSynonyms
* See alsoVerb
(idl)- to idle in an IRC channel
- He had already heard of the young man's projected journey — evidently the Comte de Combourg had written many letters while his son idled at St. Malo
References
* *Anagrams
* * *cancel
English
Alternative forms
* cancell (obsolete)Verb
- 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.
- He cancelled his order on their website.
- This machine cancels the letters that have a valid zip code.
- The corrective feedback mechanism cancels out the noise.
- cancelled from heaven
Synonyms
*Noun
(en noun)- 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.