From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishcancel something ↔ out phrasal verbEQUALif two things cancel each other out, they are equally important and have an opposite effect to each other, so that neither one has any effect → negate The losses in our overseas division have cancelled out the profits made in the home market. → cancel→ See Verb table
Examples from the Corpus
cancel out• It also has the great advantage that many of the infinities that arise in quantum theory cancel each other out.• Since the 1970s, the world had been dominated by two problems which, ironically, tended to cancel each other out.• Superposition is of the essence of waves, which can be added together to reinforce or cancel each other out.• The two William Wilsons cancelled each other out, and that was all.• These two effects cancel each other out at an altitude of about 25 kilometres.• The two sides of the equation should cancel each other out into unity.• These interfere with each other, cancelling each other out or reinforcing each other to produce bigger waves.• This means that their spins are guaranteed to cancel each other out to give a total spin of zero.From Longman Business Dictionarycancel something → out phrasal verb [transitive] if one thing cancels out another, it has an equal but opposite effect, so that the effects of the first thing are not feltThe losses in our overseas division have cancelled out this year’s profits. → cancel→ See Verb table 