Etymologically
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cancer

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Pronunciation

  • IPA: UK /ˈkæn.sə/, US /ˈkæn.sɚ/[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin cancer (“a crab, a creeping ulcer, tumor, the constellation Cancer”),[2][3] a form modelled on and cognate with Greek Ancient Greek καρκίνος (karkínos), which has the same three meanings, crab, tumor and constellation.[2][3] Barnhart also compares Sanskrit karkaṭa- “crab” and karkara- “hard”,[3][4] and Etymonline takes the words to a reduplicated form of Proto-Indo-European *kar- (“hard”).[2][3] The Greek physician Galen explained the medical sense by the likeness of the swollen veins around the sore to a crab's legs.[3][5][6] Its doublet canker was the usual form for the disease until the 17th century.[5][6][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Old English cancer, a spreading sore, malignant or not, is found about 1000 in Ælfric;[3][2] the sign of the zodiac is from about 1380, in Chaucer's translation of Boethius.[3][7]

Semantic evolution

The Old English word was displaced by the French-influenced canker[2][5] but was reintroduced in the modern medical sense, a malignant tumor, about 1600,[2] first in Holland's translation of Pliny (1601).[3][7] When canker returned to the language of medicine as cancer, canker became the word for various plant diseases.[5] The figurative sense, a spreading evil, is from 1651.[7] A crab itself was a cancer from 1562, later only in zoology.[7] A person born under the sign of Cancer is from 1894.[2][7] Since the sun is in Cancer at the summer solstice, Latin writers linked the constellation with summer heat and the south.[2] Cancer stick, “a cigarette”, is slang from 1959.[2] Cancerous is from 1563.[3]

Timeline

  • c. 1000 – Old English, a spreading sore.[3]
  • c. 1380 – the sign of the zodiac.[3]
  • 1562 – a crab.[7]
  • 1563 – cancerous.[3]
  • 1601 – a malignant tumor.[3][7]
  • 1651 – a spreading evil.[7]
  • 1894 – a person born under Cancer.[2][7]
  • 1959 – cancer stick.[2]

Modern meaning

Noun

  1. A disease caused by the uncontrolled growth of abnormal cells that can spread to other parts of the body; a malignant tumor.
  2. Something evil that spreads and destroys.
  3. Cancer: A constellation between Gemini and Leo; the fourth sign of the zodiac; a person born under it.

Word family

  • cancerous
  • cancerously
  • cancered
  • cancerousness
  • anticancer
  • canceration
  • precancer
  • cancer stick
  • canker
  • carcinogen
  • chancre
  • precancerous
  • carcinoma
  • hard

Usage notes

In Scots cancer was a name of the red campion, and in northeast Scotland of the burying beetle, from the belief that its bite caused the disease.[8]

References

  1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  4. ^ Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  5. ^ a b c d Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  6. ^ a b Pearsall, Judy, ed. (1998), The New Oxford Dictionary of English, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  8. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)