cancer

Etymology

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.

Pronunciation

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

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Audio (UK)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ænsə(ɹ)

Noun

cancer (countable and uncountable, plural cancers)

1. (medicine, oncology) 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.

3. (Can we verify⁽⁺⁾ this sense?) The quality of being cancerous.

References

• cancer at OneLook Dictionary Search
• cancer in The Century Dictionary, The Century Co., New York, 1911

Anagrams

• crance

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin cancer.

Noun

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

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

Etymology

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

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kɑ̃.sɛʁ/

• audio

  (file)

Noun

cancer m (plural cancers)

1. cancer

Further reading

• “cancer” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Etymology

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". Cognate with Latin carcer and curvus.

Pronunciation

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /ˈkan.ker/, [ˈkaŋ.kɛr]

Noun

cancer m (genitive cancrī); second declension

1. a crab
2. a tumor, cancer
3. a lattice, grid, or barrier

References

• 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

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin cancer, French cancer.

Noun

cancer n (plural cancere)

1. cancer

Pronunciation

• Audio

  (file)

Noun

cancer c

1. (medicine, oncology) cancer

References

• cancer in Svenska Akademiens Ordlista över svenska språket (13th ed., online)