cancelled
adjective, verb
cancelled is an adjective meaning “No longer planned or scheduled” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled C-A-N-C-E-L-L-E-D and has 2 syllables, and it appears 17 times per million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data).
What does cancelled mean?
adjective
- 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.
verb
- 1
simple past and past participle of cancel
The game was cancelled because of snow on the field.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce cancelled?
- General-American
Cancelled has 2 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-cancelled.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of cancelled
- canceled
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is cancelled?
Cancelled appears 17 times per million words in written English, the 4,934th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Words people confuse with cancelled
Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).
Also written: canceled.
Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).
How do you abbreviate cancelled?
Wiktionary records one abbreviation of cancelled: cnx.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Cancelled in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense No longer planned or scheduled:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | annulé |
| German | abgebrochen, abgesagt, abbestellt |
| Portuguese | cancelado |
| Spanish | cancelado, anulado |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.