carcinoma

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin carcinōma (“ulcer, tumour”),^[2][3][4][5] from Ancient Greek καρκίνωμα (karkínōma, “sore, ulcer, cancer”),^[2][5][6] which the OED derives through a verb meaning "to make crablike", in the passive "to become cancerous",^[2] from καρκίνος (karkínos, “crab; cancer”) with the suffix -μα (-ma), the source of -oma.^[2][6][7] The Greek word for crab comes from the same Indo-European base as cancer, which English borrowed as cancer.^[2][3] Compare Middle French carcinome (1545) and Italian carcinoma (before 1498).^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Cancer, a cancerous growth: the OED's revised entry has it from 1583, in P. Barrough's Methode of Phisicke.^[2] Barnhart and Etymonline date it to 1721, in Bailey's dictionary.^[4][6]

Semantic evolution

The OED quotes Paulus Aegineta for the image behind the Greek word: a tumour was called a crab because the swollen veins around it looked like a crab's legs.^[2] In English carcinoma first meant cancer in general;^[2][7] in later medical use it was narrowed to a malignant tumour that starts in epithelial tissue, as against a sarcoma.^[2][8][9] Two other uses died out: an eye disease, defined by Quincy and quoted by Johnson (1755) as a disorder of the horny coat of the eye,^[2][10] and in 19th-century botany a disease of trees.^[2]

Timeline

• 1583 – cancer; a cancerous growth.^[2] Barnhart and Etymonline date the word to 1721.^[4][6]
• 1722 – a disease of the cornea (obsolete by 1753).^[2][10]
• 1832 – a disease of trees with cankers on the bark (obsolete by 1866).^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A malignant tumour arising in epithelial tissue, such as the lining of an organ or the skin.^[9][8][2][7]
2. Cancer in general.^[9][2]

Word family

• carcinomatoid
• carcinomatous
• adenocarcinoma
• carcinomatosis
• choriocarcinoma
• mastocarcinoma
• teratocarcinoma
• basal cell carcinoma

Related words

• carcinogen
• carcinogenesis
• carcinoid
• cancer
• canker
• sarcoma
• -oma

Usage notes

The plural is carcinomas or, less often, the classical carcinomata.^[9][8][6]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
4. ^ a b c Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
6. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
9. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
10. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.