Refuse vs Cancel - What's the difference?
refuse | cancel |
(UK) Collectively, items or material that have been discarded; rubbish, garbage.
To decline (a request or demand).
* Bible, Isa. i. 20
* {{quote-news
, year=2011
, date=September 27
, author=Alistair Magowan
, title=Bayern Munich 2 - 0 Man City
, work=BBC Sport
To decline a request or demand, forbear; to withhold permission.
(military) To throw back, or cause to keep back (as the centre, a wing, or a flank), out of the regular alignment when troops are about to engage the enemy.
(obsolete) To disown.
* Shakespeare
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 transitive terms the difference between refuse and cancel
is that refuse is to decline (a request or demand) while cancel is to offset or equalize something.In obsolete terms the difference between refuse and cancel
is that refuse is refusal while cancel is an inclosure; a boundary; a limit.As an adjective refuse
is discarded, rejected.refuse
English
Etymology 1
From (etyl) .Noun
(-)Synonyms
* discards * garbage (US ) * rubbish (UK ) * trash (US ) * See alsoEtymology 2
From (etyl) refuser, from .Verb
(refus)- My request for a pay rise was refused .
- I refuse to listen to this nonsense any more.
- If ye refuse ye shall be devoured with the sword.
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- I asked the star if I could have her autograph, but she refused .
- to refuse the right wing while the left wing attacks
- Refuse thy name.
Usage notes
* This is a catenative verb that takes the to infinitive . SeeSynonyms
* (decline) decline, reject, nill, say no to, turn down, veto, withsake * (decline a request or demand) say no, forbearcancel
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.