# canker
## English
### Pronunciation

* (General American) IPA: /ˈkæŋkɚ/
* (Received Pronunciation) IPA: /ˈkæŋkə/
* Rhymes: -æŋkə(ɹ)
* Hyphenation: can‧ker
* Audio (Southern England):(file)

### Etymology 1

From Middle English canker, cancre, from Old English cancer (“cancer; crab”), akin to Dutch kanker, Old High German chanchar. Ultimately from Latin cancer (“a cancer”). Doublet of cancer, a later borrowing from Latin, and chancre, which came through French.

#### Noun

canker (countable and uncountable, plural cankers)
* (phytopathology) A plant disease marked by gradual decay.
* A region of dead plant tissue caused by such a disease.
** 1977, The Potato: Major Diseases and Nematodes, International Potato Center, page 46:Slightly sunken brown cankers of variable size and shape affect stem parts primarily below the soil line.
* A worm or grub that destroys plant buds or leaves; cankerworm.
** 1609, William Shakespeare, “Sonnet 35”, in Shake-speares Sonnets. […], London: By G[eorge] Eld for T[homas] T[horpe] and are to be sold by William Aspley, →OCLC:loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud […]
* A corroding or sloughing ulcer; especially a spreading gangrenous ulcer or collection of ulcers in or about the mouth.
* Anything which corrodes, corrupts, or destroys.
** c. 1690, Sir William Temple, Of Heroick Virtue:the cankers of envy and faction
** 1941, Theodore Roethke, “Feud”, in Open House, New York, N.Y.: Alfred A[braham] Knopf, →OCLC; republished in The Collected Poems of Theodore Roethke, London: Faber and Faber […], 1968, →OCLC, page 4:There’s canker at the root, your seed Denies the blessing of the sun, The light essential to your need. Your hopes are murdered and undone.
* A kind of wild rose; the dog rose.
** c. 1597 (date written), [William Shakespeare], The History of Henrie the Fourth; […], quarto edition, London: […] P[eter] S[hort] for Andrew Wise, […], published 1598, →OCLC, [Act I, scene iii], signature [B.iv.], recto:To put down Richard, that ſweet louely Roſe, And plant this thorne, this canker Bullingbrooke?
* An obstinate and often incurable disease of a horse's foot, characterized by separation of the horny portion and the development of fungoid growths. Usually resulting from neglected thrush.
* An avian disease affecting doves, poultry, parrots and birds of prey, caused by Trichomonas gallinae.
* (rare, now Cornwall) A crab.
** 1562, Williyam Bulleyn [i.e., William Bullein], “The Booke of Simples”, in Bulleins Bulwarke of Defẽce againste All Sicknes, Sornes, and Woundes, That Dooe Daily Assaulte Mankinde, […], London: […] Ihon Kyngston, →OCLC, folio lxxx, verso:This Caſtoꝛ liueth by water and lande, he loueth to feede vpon Crabbes and Cankers of the Sea.
** 1856, The Zoologist (volumes 14-15, page 5616)
    It is this power of active motion which has obtained it a local name in the West of Cornwall, where, as crabs in general are termed "cankers," this species is distinguished by the name of "flying canker."

##### Synonyms

* (ulcer, especially of the mouth): water canker, canker of the mouth, noma
* (bird disease): avian trichomoniasis, roup
* (hawk disease): frounce

##### Derived terms

* black canker
* canker fly
* cankerlike
* cankerous
* canker rash
* canker sore
* cankerwort
* cankery
* encanker

##### Related terms

* chancre

##### Translations
### Etymology 2

From Middle English cankren, from the noun (see above).

#### Verb

canker (third-person singular simple present cankers, present participle cankering, simple past and past participle cankered)
* (transitive) To affect as a canker; to eat away; to corrode; to consume.
** 1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, Canto XXVI, page 43:Still onward winds the dreary way; / I with it; for I long to prove / No lapse of moons can canker Love, / Whatever fickle tongues may say.
* (transitive) To infect or pollute; to corrupt.
* (intransitive) To waste away, grow rusty, or be oxidized, as a mineral.
* (intransitive) To be or become diseased, or as if diseased, with canker; to grow corrupt; to become venomous.
** 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene i]:as with age his body uglier grows, So his mind cankers.
** 1972, E. M. Forster, chapter 36, in Maurice‎, Penguin, page 156:[…] the road, always in bad condition, was edged with dog roses that scratched the paint. Blossom after blossom crept past them, draggled by the ungenial year: some had cankered, others would never unfold:

### References

* “canker”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

### Anagrams

* Neckar, nacker

## Scots
### Alternative forms

* cancre, cankyr, kanker

### Etymology

Middle English canker, cancre, Old English cancer, akin to Dutch kanker, Old High German chanchar. From Latin cancer (“a cancer”).

### Pronunciation

* (Southern Scots) IPA: /ˈkɔːŋɡkʌr/

### Noun

canker (plural cankers)
* Bad temper.

### Verb

canker (third-person singular simple present cankers, present participle cankerin, simple past cankert, past participle cankert)
* (archaic) To become bad-tempered, to fret, to worry.