cancellus

From Latin cancellus (“little crab”). Doublet of chancel.

cancellus (plural cancelli)

1. (architecture) A barrier, balustrade or railing, or screen, dividing the main body of a church from the chancel.
2. (anatomy) One of the interlacing osseous plates constituting the elastic porous tissue of certain parts of the bones, especially in their articular extremities.

Diminutive, from cancer (“crab”) +‎ -lus.

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /kanˈkel.lus/, [käŋˈkɛlːʲʊs̠]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /kanˈt͡ʃel.lus/, [kän̠ʲˈt͡ʃɛlːus]

cancellus m (genitive cancellī); second declension

1. one of the bars which, in the form of a grid, collectively constitute a door that lets daylight through; the bars were covered by vēla if it was desired to keep the light off – lattice, grate, grid, bars, barrier, railings
   • a. 224, Dig. 30, 1, 41, § 10 Ulpianus libro vicesimo primo ad Sabinum

     Sed si cancelli sint vel vela, legari poterunt, non tamen fistulae vel castelli.

     But while bar-doors or their veils can be legated, not so water-pipes or water-basins.

   • 211–217 Dig. 43, 24, 9, § 1 Ulpianus libro septuagensimo primo ad edictum

     Si tamen sera vel clavis vel cancellus vel specularium sit ablatum, quod vi aut clam agi non poterit.

     But if a door-bar or a key or a pane is carried away, be it by force or stealthily, there is no action [by interdict].

Usually used in the plural to denote such a door.

Second-declension noun.

• cancellārius
• cancellō

• Gesterding, Franz (1818) Alte und neue Irrthümer der Rechtsgelehrten, Greifswald: Ernst Mauritius, page 365
• “cancellus”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• cancellus in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
• cancellus in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.