canned meaning: definition, quotations

canned

adj

CA, US, UK /kænd/ · UK, SC, WA /kand/

Preserved in cans.

Broadly Previously prepared; not fresh or new; standardized, mass-produced, or lacking originality or customization.

canned laughter
The form letter included a canned answer stating that what I asked was against policy.

4 more examples

And the punch-lines seem to disappear like clouds across the sky / And the laughter could be real or could be canned1996, Paul Heaton, Dave Rotheray, “Liar's Bar”, in Blue Is the Colour, performed by The Beautiful South:
Unfortunately, some of the canned code, which Visual C++ gives to you when creating an application, is not CE aware and gives you compile errors.1998, Dr. Dobb's Journal: Software Tools for the Professional Programmer:
The vested owners of all those sun-drenched tract houses may stick around for a while and fight over the region, perhaps thinking that they are reenacting the great historical dramas of the nineteenth century—such is the long-term effect of canned entertainment on the collective imagination.2005, James Howard Kunstler, chapter 7, in The Long Emergency, page 279:
Throughout the evening, Mr. Christie’s admonition about canned lines and rehearsed speeches hovered and seemed to recalibrate how the crowd — and television viewers — processed what Mr. Rubio said (and resaid, over and over).2016 February 7, Michael Barbaro, “Once Impervious, Marco Rubio Is Diminished by a Caustic Chris Christie”, in The New York Times:

Slang Drunk.

Terminated, fired from a job.

Cancelled or thrown away, said of a project or news article.

The raider story was canned by the censor on instructions from the naval authorities.1997, Frederick T. Smith, Backroom Briefings: John Curtin's War:

Synonyms: tinned, boilerplate, stock, drunk
Antonyms: dried
Derived terms: canned air, canned benchmark, canned cheese, canned heat, canned hunt, canned hunting, canned laughter, canned opener, canned ration, canned response, noncanned, uncanned