vt. To abort a job on a time-sharing system. Used esp. when the
person doing the deed is an operator, as in "
canned from the
console". Frequently used in an imperative sense, as in "
Can
that print job, the LPT just popped a sprocket!" Synonymous with
gun. It is said that the ASCII character with mnemonic CAN
(0011000) was used as a kill-job character on some early OSes.