sb. pl. [L. cancelli crossing bars, gratings, lattice, railings, pl. of cancellus, dim. of cancer, pl. cancri crossing bars, grating.]
1. Bars of lattice-work; spec. the latticed screen between the choir and body of the church; hence the CHANCEL (mod.F. cancel) so railed off. (Hardly in Eng. use.)
1642. Jer. Taylor, Episc. (1647), 247. S. Ambrose his sending his Deacon to the Emperour, to desire him to goe forth of the Cancelli.
1703. Maundrell, Journ. Jerus. (1732), 27. The Altar is inclos’d with Cancelli.
2. Phys. ‘The lattice-work of the spongy portion of bones, consisting of thin plates and bars interlacing with each other, and forming arches and buttresses in the direction of greatest pressure.’ Syd. Soc. Lex.
1802. Med. Jrnl., VIII. 371. The bone of the cavity of the tympanum in the cetacea … shewing no vestige of fibres, cancelli, or vessels.
1871. Proc. Amer. Phil. Soc., XII. 25. The cancelli … always run parallel with the axis of the bone.
¶ b. Improperly applied to the interstices between these bars and plates of bones. (Probably first extended to the whole cancellous or cancellated tissue, including the interstices, and then carelessly misapplied to the latter.)
1845. Todd & Bowman, Phys. Anat., I. 80. In the cancelli of bones there is a large deposit of fat.
1854. Owen, in Circ. Sc. (c. 1865), II. 47/2. Mere cancelli, or small medullary cavities.
1881. Mivart, Cat, 20. Some bones have their entire substance replete with cavities or cancelli, and such are called cancellated or spongy.
