cancer

Borrowed from Latin cancer (“crab”), by metathesis from Ancient Greek καρκίνος (karkínos, “crab”); applied to cancerous tumors because the enlarged veins resembled the legs of a crab. Doublet of canker and chancre.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈkænsə/
• (General Australian) IPA^(key): /ˈkæːnsə/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈkænsɚ/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Audio (UK)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ænsə(ɹ)

cancer (countable and uncountable, plural cancers)

1. (medicine, oncology, pathology) A disease in which the cells of a tissue undergo uncontrolled (and often rapid) proliferation.
   • 2006, Edwin Black, chapter 1, in Internal Combustion‎:

     If successful, Edison and Ford—in 1914—would move society away from the […] hazards of gasoline cars: air and water pollution, noise and noxiousness, constant coughing and the undeniable rise in cancers caused by smoke exhaust particulates.

   • 2013 June 22, “Snakes and ladders”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8841, page 76:

     Risk is everywhere. From tabloid headlines insisting that coffee causes cancer (yesterday, of course, it cured it) to stern government warnings about alcohol and driving, the world is teeming with goblins. For each one there is a frighteningly precise measurement of just how likely it is to jump from the shadows and get you.

2. (figuratively) Something damaging that spreads throughout something else.
   • 1999, Bruce Clifford Ross-Larson, Effective Writing‎, page 134:

     Sierra Leone's post-dictator problems are almost absurd in their breadth. It once exported rice; now it can't feed itself. The life span of the average citizen is 39, the shortest in Africa. Unemployment stands at 87 percent and tuberculosis is spreading out of control. Corruption, brazen and ubiquitous, is a cancer on the economy.

• (disease): malignancy
• (something which spreads): growth
• (something which spreads): lichen

• (disease): growth
• (disease): tumor
• (disease): neoplasia
• (disease): neoplasm

• carcinoma
  • adenocarcinoma
• leukaemia / leukemia
• lymphoma
• sarcoma
  • lymphosarcoma
• See also: Derived terms denoting types

• benign tumor
• benign neoplasm
• benign neoplasia

• cancerwort (Kickxia spp.)
• cancer bush (Lessertia frutescens)
• cancer stick
• cancer root

• → Hindi: कैंसर (kainsar)
• → Swahili: kansa
• → Urdu: کینسر‎ (kainsar)

cancer (comparative more cancer, superlative most cancer)

1. (slang) Extremely unpleasant and annoying.

   Synonyms: (slang) cancerous, (slang) AIDS

   I used to love this game, but the new meta is straight up cancer.

• benignancy (benignity)
• leukemia
• lymphoma
• malignancy
• melanoma

• cancer at OneLook Dictionary Search
• “cancer”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.

• crance

From English cancer.

cancer

1. (Hong Kong Cantonese) cancer (disease)

   生cancer [Cantonese]  ―  saang¹ ken¹ saa² [Jyutping]  ―  to have cancer

• 癌 (ái), 癌症 (áizhèng)

Borrowed from Latin cancer.

cancer c (singular definite canceren, not used in plural form)

1. cancer (disease)
2. (slang) Something perceived as bad.

Borrowed from Latin cancer. Doublet of chancre, which was inherited, and cancre.

• IPA^(key): /kɑ̃.sɛʁ/

• audio

  (file)

cancer m (plural cancers)

1. cancer

• cancer vert

• cancre
• chancre

• → Romanian: cancer
• → Turkish: kanser

• “cancer”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

From Proto-Italic *kankros, dissimilation of Proto-Italic *karkros (“enclosure”) (because the pincers of a crab form a circle), from Proto-Indo-European *kr-kr- (“circular”), reduplication of Proto-Indo-European *(s)ker- (“to turn, bend”) in the sense of "enclosure", and as such a doublet of carcer. Cognate with curvus.

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /ˈkan.ker/, [ˈkäŋkɛr]
• (Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈkan.t͡ʃer/, [ˈkän̠ʲt͡ʃer]

cancer m (genitive cancrī); second declension

1. a crab
   1. (Astronomy) the constellation Cancer
2. a tumor, cancer

   Synonym: carcinōma

3. a lattice, grid, or barrier

Second-declension noun (nominative singular in -er).

• In classical Latin, generally declined as a masculine noun of the second declension with the stem cancro-, but Lucretius uses a genitive singular form canceris (De Rerum Natura 5.617) and Cato the Elder uses a plural form canceres (De Agri Cultura 157.3.4), which are third-declension forms built on a stem cancer-. The grammarians Charisius and Priscian describe a use as a neuter noun, with Priscian specifying that this applies when the word is used for the illness; the neuter occurs sporadically in later Christian authors.[1]

• cancellus

• “cancer”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “cancer”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• “cancer”, in The Perseus Project (1999) Perseus Encyclopedia‎

• cancor

From Latin cancer.

• IPA^(key): /ˈkɑn.ker/, [ˈkɑŋ.ker]

cancer m

1. cancer
2. crab

• cancerādl
• cancerhæbern
• cancerwund

• Middle English: canker, cancre, cancer, cankre, cankyr, kankir, kanker (partially from Old French cancre)
  • English: canker

• Joseph Bosworth and T. Northcote Toller (1898), “cancer”, in An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, 2nd edition, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Borrowed from French cancer, from Latin cancer.

cancer n (plural cancere)

1. cancer

• canceros

• Audio

  (file)

cancer c

1. (medicine, oncology, pathology) cancer

• kräfta (obsolete)

• cancer in Svenska Akademiens ordlista (SAOL)