Hawking. Forms: 7 cancelleer, -ere, canceleer, cancileer, -ier, cancilleere, chancelleer, 7–8 cancellier, 8 cancelier. [a. the infinitive (taken subst.) of ONF. canceler, in mod.F. chanceler to swerve, shake to and fro, waver, totter, stagger, app. the same as OF. canceler, chanceler to place in the position of crossing bars or lattice-work, to cross; but since OF. had also es-canceler, es-chanceler, Littré takes the latter as the proper form in this sense, and explains it as:—L. *ex-cancellāre to escape out of cancelli, ‘sortir des barreaux, d’où chanceler,’ and thinks that the use of the simple verb in the sense of the derivative was due to confusion. But the simple canceler is quite as old in this sense (11th c.).] See quot. 1704.
1599. Weever, Epigr., IV. v. (N.). Nor with the Falcon fetch a cancelleer.
1612. Drayton, Poly-olb., xx. The fierce and eager hawks … Make sundry canceleers e’er they the fowl can reach.
1665. Cotton, Scarron., IV. (1741), 141. Full swift she flew till coming near Carthage, she made a Chancelleer, And then a Stoop.
1704. Worlidge, Dict. Rust. et Urb., Cancellier … when a light flown Hawk, in her stooping, turns two or three times upon the Wing, to recover herself before she seizes.
1823. in Crabb, Techn. Dict.
b. fig.
1649. G. Daniel, Trinarch., Hen. V., cclvi. Enough if fame … Scorne to Stoope, in well-wing’d Verse, To Single Names, in fainting Canciliers.
1654. H. L’Estrange, Chas. I. (1655), 20–1. His cancellier, his fall being only from the first loft.
