Canceled or cancelled?
In American English write canceled; in British and Commonwealth English, cancelled. Both are forms of cancel: canceled is the simple past and past participle of cancel, and cancelled the simple past and past participle of cancel. On its own, canceled is an adjective meaning “US standard spelling of cancelled”, and cancelled an adjective meaning “No longer planned or scheduled”. In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) cancelled is about 2.1 times as common as canceled.
What is the difference between canceled and cancelled?
| canceled | cancelled | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | adjective, verb | adjective, verb |
| Meaning | USUS standard spelling of cancelled | No longer planned or scheduled Marked over the stamp, to show that the stamp has been used |
| Example | none recorded | The cancelled show would have drawn some 5,000 fans |
| Pronunciation | not recorded | not recorded |
| Region | US | no label |
| In writing | 7.9 times per million words | 17 times per million words |
Sources: canceled and cancelled in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of canceled and cancelled
canceled
- 1
USUS standard spelling of cancelled
cancelled
- 1
No longer planned or scheduled
The cancelled show would have drawn some 5,000 fans
- 2
Marked over the stamp, to show that the stamp has been used
Most of the cancelled specimens were somewhat less valuable philatelically
- 3
Socially censured in a way expected to be durable rather than transient. Or, otherwise a permanent and irrevocable state of social isolation, esp. from interactive media
On the question of rehabilitation for cancelled celebrities, the nature of the offence is relevant: a bad day is different from a life of abusive crime
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, canceled or cancelled?
canceled appears 7.9 times per million words; cancelled 17 times per million words.
canceled 7.9 times per million wordscancelled 17 times per million words
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How many people search canceled vs cancelled?
“canceled vs cancelled” is searched about 201,000 times a month on Google (Bing reports no separate figure) in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“cancelled vs canceled”, “canceled or cancelled”).
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.