CANCELLING, in the civil law, an act whereby a person consents that some former deed be rendered null and void. This is otherwise called recession. The word comes from the Latin cancellare to encompass or pale a thing round. In the proper sense of the word, to cancel, is to deface an obligation, by passing the pen from top to bottom, or across it; which makes a kind of chequer lattice, which the Latins call cancelli.