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Canker   /kˈæŋkər/   Listen
noun
Canker  n.  
1.
A corroding or sloughing ulcer; esp. a spreading gangrenous ulcer or collection of ulcers in or about the mouth; called also water canker, canker of the mouth, and noma.
2.
Anything which corrodes, corrupts, or destroy. "The cankers of envy and faction."
3.
(Hort.) A disease incident to trees, causing the bark to rot and fall off.
4.
(Far.) 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.
5.
A kind of wild, worthless rose; the dog-rose. "To put down Richard, that sweet lovely rose. And plant this thorm, this canker, Bolingbroke."
Black canker. See under Black.



verb
Canker  v. t.  (past & past part. cankered; pres. part. cankering)  
1.
To affect as a canker; to eat away; to corrode; to consume. "No lapse of moons can canker Love."
2.
To infect or pollute; to corrupt. "A tithe purloined cankers the whole estate."



Canker  v. i.  
1.
To waste away, grow rusty, or be oxidized, as a mineral. (Obs.) "Silvering will sully and canker more than gliding."
2.
To be or become diseased, or as if diseased, with canker; to grow corrupt; to become venomous. "Deceit and cankered malice." "As with age his body uglier grows, So his mind cankers."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Canker" Quotes from Famous Books



... Love's Armure; They only conquer in Love's Lists that fall, And Wounds renewed for Wounds are captain Cure. He doubly is inslaved that gilts his Chain, Saith Reason, chaffering for his Empire gone, Bestir, and root the Canker that hath ta'en Thy Breast for Bed, and feeds ...
— Silverpoints • John Gray

... to revive in the heart of Boris; but as months passed and no decision came, those hopes faded again, and the canker of the past gnawed at his vitals and sapped his strength. And then there was ever present to his mind the nightmare riddle of the pretender's identity. At last, one evening in April, he sent for Smirnoy Otrepiev to question him again concerning that nephew of ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini

... charge by the Lord that none speak without eternal [Divine] motion; for if you do, the false prophet speaks, and his words eat as a canker, and darken and vail them that hearken ...
— On Singing and Music • Society of Friends

... art gone, and never must return! Thee, Shepherd, thee the woods and desert caves, With wild thyme and the gadding vine o'ergrown, And all their echoes mourn. The willows, and the hazel-copses green, Shall now no more be seen Fanning their joyous leaves to thy soft lays. As killing as the canker to the rose, Or taint-worm to the weanling herds that graze, Or frost to flowers, that their gay wardrobe wear, When first the white-thorn blows; Such, Lycidas, thy loss to shepherds' ear. Where were ye, Nymphs, when the remorseless deep Closed o'er the head of your loved Lycidas? For neither were ...
— The Hundred Best English Poems • Various

... hast no hope to scape; he that dares most, and damns away his soul to do thee service, will sooner fetch meat from a hungry Lion, than come to rescue thee; thou hast death about thee: h'as undone thine honour, poyson'd thy vertue, and of a lovely rose, left thee a canker. ...
— The Maids Tragedy • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher


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