cancer

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

English

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^[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

• blood cancer
• bowel cancer
• brain cancer
• breast cancer
• cervical cancer
• colon cancer
• melanoma

• leukemia
• lymphoma
• lung cancer
• ovarian cancer
• prostate cancer
• skin cancer
• testicular cancer

• cancer bush
• cancer stick

Related terms

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

 

Descendants

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

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), խլիրդ (hy) (xlird)
• Asturian: cáncer m
• Azerbaijani: xərçəng (az)
• Basque: minbizi (eu)
• Belarusian: рак m (rak)
• Bengali: ক্যান্সার (kênsar)
• Breton: krign-bev m, krankr m
• Bulgarian: рак (bg) m (rak)
• Burmese: ကင်ဆာရောဂါ (kanghcarau:ga)
• Catalan: càncer (ca) m
• Cherokee: ᎠᏓᏰᏍᎩ (adayesgi)
• Chinese:

  Cantonese: 癌 (ngaam⁴), 癌症 (ngaam⁴ zing³)

  Gan: 癌

  Mandarin: 癌症 (zh) (áizhèng)

  Wu: 癌

• Czech: rakovina (cs) f
• Danish: kræft (da) c
• Dutch: kanker (nl) m
• 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)

  Ancient Greek: καρκίνος m (karkínos)

• Greenlandic: kræfti
• Gujarati: કર્કરોગ (karkarog)
• Hebrew: סרטן‎ (he) (sartán)
• Hindi: कर्कट (hi) (karkaṭ), कैंसर (kainsar)
• Hungarian: rák (hu)
• Icelandic: krabbamein (is) n, krabbi (is) m (colloquial)
• Ido: kancero (io)
• Inari Sami: puurâs
• Indonesian: kanker (id)
• Interlingua: cancere
• 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:

  Central Kurdish: شێرپەنجە‎ (şêrpence)

• Lao: ມະເຮັງ (ma heng)
• Latvian: vēzis (lv)
• Lithuanian: vėžys
• Luxembourgish: Kriibs m
• Macedonian: рак m (rak)
• Malagasy: asorotany (mg)
• 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
• Northern Sami: borasdávda, boras, sonahat
• Norwegian: cancer (no) m

  Bokmål: kreft m

  Nynorsk: kreft m

• Occitan: càncer m
• Persian: سرطان‎ (fa) (saratân), نج‎ (fa), خرچنگ‎ (fa) (xarčang), چنگار‎ (fa) (čangār)
• Polish: nowotwór złośliwy m, rak (pl) m (colloquial)
• Portuguese: câncer (pt) m
• Romanian: cancer (ro)
• Russian: рак (ru) m (rak), (medical) 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
• Skolt Sami: poorrikõpp
• 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)
• Tibetan: སྐྲན་ནད (skran nad)
• 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)
• Zhuang: bingh'aizcwng

See also

• malignant

References

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

Anagrams

• crance

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Danish

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.

Declension

Declension of cancer

common gender	Singular
	indefinite	definite
nominative	cancer	canceren
genitive	cancers	cancerens

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French

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 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]
• (Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈkan.t͡ʃer/, [ˈkan̠ʲ.t͡ʃɛr]

Noun

cancer m (genitive cancrī); second declension

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

Declension

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

Case	Singular	Plural
Nominative	cancer	cancrī
Genitive	cancrī	cancrōrum
Dative	cancrō	cancrīs
Accusative	cancrum	cancrōs
Ablative	cancrō	cancrīs
Vocative	cancer	cancrī

Derived terms

• cancellus

Descendants

• Asturian: cáncanu, cancru, cangru (“crab louse”), cangrexu
• Old French: chancre
  • Middle French: chancre
    • French: chancre
      • → English: chancre
    • Norman: chancre
  • Walloon: crantche
• Friulian: cancar (from a dialectal variant *cáncaro),
  granç (via Late Latin cancrus)
• Galician: cáncaro, cángaro, cancro, cangrio; cangrexo
• Italian: granchio (via Late Latin cancrus)
• Old Occitan: [Term?]
  • Catalan: cranc, carranc
  • Occitan: cranc
• Portuguese: carango (“crab louse”)
• Romanian: cancer
• Sicilian: càncaru, granciu, grancifudduni
  • → Maltese: granċi
• Spanish: cangro
  • Spanish: cangrejo
    • → Portuguese: caranguejo
• Venetian: cancaro (from a dialectal variant *cáncaro), granso (via Late Latin cancrus)

• New Latin: cancer
  • → Asturian: cáncer
  • → Catalan: càncer
  • → French: cancer, cancre
  • → Middle Dutch: canker
    • Dutch: kanker
      • Afrikaans: kanker
      • → Indonesian: kanker
  • → Italian: cancro
  • → Norman: cancèr
  • → Occitan: càncer
  • → Old English: cancer
  • Middle English: canker
    • → English: cancer
      • English: canker
  • → Portuguese: cancro, câncer
  • → Spanish: cáncer, cancro
  • → Walloon: cancer

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]
• Jerry R. Craddock, "The Romance descendants of Latin cancer and vespa", in: Romance Philology, Vol. 60 (2006), pp. 1–42.

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Old English

Etymology

From Latin cancer.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈkɑn.ker/, [ˈkɑŋ.ker]

Noun

cancer m

1. cancer
2. crab

Declension

Declension of cancer (strong a-stem)

Case	Singular	Plural
nominative	cancer	cancras
accusative	cancer	cancras
genitive	cancres	cancra
dative	cancre	cancrum

Derived terms

• cancerādl
• cancerhæbern
• cancerwund

References

• cancer in Joseph Bosworth and T. Northcote Toller (1898) An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary

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Romanian

Etymology

Borrowed 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) cancer

Usage notes

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

Declension

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

Related terms

• cancersvulst
• bröstcancer
• hudcancer
• lungcancer

References

• cancer in Svenska Akademiens ordlista (SAOL)