cancer

See also: Cancer, cáncer, cancèr, Cáncer, càncer, câncer, and Câncer

English

Etymology

Borrowing 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/
• (Australia) 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, medicine) A disease in which the cells of a tissue undergo uncontrolled (and often rapid) proliferation.
   • 2006, Edwin Black, chapter 1, in Internal Combustion^[1]:

     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^[2], 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.

Synonyms

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

Hyponyms

• tumor
• leukaemia, leukemia

Derived terms

types of cancer

• bowel cancer
• breast cancer
• colon cancer
• leukemia
• testicular cancer

• lung cancer
• prostate cancer
• ovarian cancer
• skin cancer
• cervical cancer

Related terms

• Cancer
• cancerization
• cancerize
• cancerous
• canker
• chancre
• precancerous

Translations

disease of uncontrolled cellular proliferation

• Afrikaans: kanker
• Albanian: kancer (sq)
• Amharic: please add this translation if you can
• Arabic: سَرَطَان‏‎ m (saraṭān)
• Aragonese: cáncer m
• Armenian: քաղցկեղ (hy) (kʿałcʿkeł)
• Asturian: cáncer m
• Azeri: xərçəng (az)
• Basque: minbizi (eu)
• Belarusian: рак m (rak)
• Bengali: ক্যান্সার (kænsar)
• Breton: krign-bev m, krankr m
• Bulgarian: рак (bg) m (rak)
• Burmese: ကင်ဆာရောဂါ (kanghcarau:ga)
• Catalan: càncer m
• Cherokee: ᎠᏓᏰᏍᎩ (adayesgi)
• Chinese:

  Cantonese: 癌 (ngaam⁴)

  Gan: 癌

  Mandarin: 癌症 (zh) (áizhèng)

  Wu: 癌

• Czech: rakovina (cs) f
• Danish: kræft (da) c
• Dutch: kanker (nl)
• Erzya: цюци (cjuci)
• Esperanto: kancero
• Estonian: vähktõbi (et)
• Faroese: krabbamein n, krabbi m
• Finnish: syöpä (fi)
• French: cancer (fr) m
• Friulian: cancar m
• Galician: cancro (gl) m, cáncer (gl) m
• Georgian: კიბო (ḳibo)
• German: Krebs (de) m
• Greek: καρκίνος (el) m (karkínos)
• Greenlandic: kræfti
• Hebrew: סרטן‏‎ (he) (sart'an)
• Hindi: कर्कट (hi) (karkaṭ), कैंसर (kainsar)
• Hungarian: rák (hu)
• Icelandic: krabbamein (is) n, krabbi (is) m (colloquial)
• Ido: kancero (io)
• Indonesian: kanker (id)
• Irish: ailse f
• Italian: cancro (it) m
• Japanese: 癌 (ja) (がん, gan)
• Javanese: ꦥꦸꦫꦸ​ꦲꦪꦭ꧀ (puru ayal)
• Kalmyk: гүлгн (gülgn)
• Kannada: please add this translation if you can
• Khmer: កង់ស៊ែរ (kɑŋ sɛɛ)
• Korean: 암 (ko) (am)

• Kurdish:

  Sorani: سه‌ره‌تان‏‎ (ku) (saratân)

• Lao: ມະເຮັງ (ma heng)
• Latvian: vēzis (lv)
• Lithuanian: vėžys
• Luxembourgish: Kriibs m
• Macedonian: рак m (rak)
• Malay: barah, kanser
• Manx: kanghyr m
• Maori: mate pukupuku, pukupuku
• Mi'kmaq: go'gwejij anim
• Mongolian: хорт хавдар (mn) (hort havdar)
• Navajo: łóód doo nádziihii, naałdzid
• Norman: cancèr m
• Norwegian: cancer (no) m

  Bokmål: kreft m

  Nynorsk: kreft m

• Occitan: càncer m
• Persian: سرطان‏‎ (fa) (saratân), نج‏‎ (fa), خرچنگ‏‎ (fa) (xarčang)
• Polish: nowotwór złośliwy m
• Portuguese: câncer (pt) m
• Romanian: cancer (ro)
• Russian: рак (ru) m (rak), (med.) злока́чественная о́пухоль f (zlokáčestvennaja ópuxolʹ)
• Samogitian: viežīs, viežīs m
• Scottish Gaelic: aillse f
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: рак m

  Roman: rak (sh) m

• Sicilian: càncaru (scn) m, cancru m, tumuri
• Slovak: rakovina f, rak m anim
• Slovene: rak (sl) m anim
• Somali: kansar
• Spanish: cáncer (es) m
• Swahili: saratani (sw), kansa (sw)
• Swedish: cancer (sv) c
• Tagalog: kanser
• Tajik: саратон (tg) (saraton)
• Tamil: புற்றுநோய் (ta) (puṟṟunōy)
• Telugu: కాన్సర్ (kānsar)
• Thai: มะเร็ง (th) (má-reng)
• Turkish: kanser (tr)
• Udmurt: тэльсе (telʹse)
• Ukrainian: рак (uk) m (rak)
• Uyghur: please add this translation if you can: (raki)
• Venetian: cancaro m, càncaro m
• Vietnamese: ung thư (vi)
• Volapük: please add this translation if you can
• Võro: vähktõbi, vähk
• Welsh: cancr
• Yiddish: עמעסע מעשׂה‏‎ f (emese mayse), יענע מעשׂה‏‎ f (yene mayse), ראַק‏‎ (rak)

See also

• malignant

Anagrams

• crance

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Danish

Etymology

Borrowing from Latin cancer.

Noun

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

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

Declension

Declension of cancer

common gender	Singular
	indefinite	definite
nominative	cancer	canceren
genitive	cancers	cancerens

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French

Etymology

Borrowing from Latin cancer. Doublet of chancre, which was inherited.

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).

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Latin

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

Inflection

Second declension, nominative singular in -er.

Case	Singular	Plural
nominative	cancer	cancrī
genitive	cancrī	cancrōrum
dative	cancrō	cancrīs
accusative	cancrum	cancrōs
ablative	cancrō	cancrīs
vocative	cancer1	cancrī

¹May also be cancre.

Derived terms

• cancellus

Descendants

• Asturian: cáncer (borrowing), cangrexu (through diminutive)
• Catalan: càncer (borrowing), cranc, carranc
• English: cancer (borrowing), canker (through Old English), chancre (through French)
• Dutch: kanker
• French: cancer (borrowing), cancre (borrowing), chancre
• Friulian: cancar (borrowing), granç
• Galician: cangrexo (through diminutive)
• Italian: cancro (borrowing), granchio (through dative or diminutive)
• Norman: cancèr (borrowing), chancre
• Occitan: càncer (borrowing), cranc
• Old French: chancre

• Portuguese: cancro (borrowing), câncer (borrowing), caranguejo (through Spanish)
• Romanian: cancer
• Sicilian: càncaru, granciu, grancifudduni
• Spanish: cáncer (borrowing), cancro (borrowing), cangrejo (through diminutive), cangro, chancro (through French)
• Venetian: cancaro (borrowing), granso
• Walloon : crantche, cancer (borrowing)

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^[3]

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Romanian

Etymology

Borrowing from Latin cancer, French cancer.

Noun

cancer n (plural cancere)

1. cancer

Declension

declension of cancer

	singular		plural
	indefinite articulation	definite articulation	indefinite articulation	definite articulation
nominative/accusative	(un) cancer	cancerul	(niște) cancere	cancerele
genitive/dative	(unui) cancer	cancerului	(unor) cancere	cancerelor
vocative	cancerule		cancerelor

Related terms

• canceros

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Swedish

Pronunciation

• Audio

  (file)

Noun

cancer c

1. (medicine, oncology, medicine) cancer

Declension

Declension of cancer
	Singular		Plural
	Indefinite	Definite	Indefinite	Definite
Nominative	cancer	cancern	cancrar	cancrarna
Genitive	cancers	cancerns	cancrars	cancrarnas

Usage notes

• Until circa 1970, the word kräfta was also used.

Related terms

• cancersvulst
• bröstcancer
• hudcancer
• lungcancer

References

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