cancer English · revision 3048

+ {{infobox|confidence=established|formation=borrowing|attested=c. 1000, Ælfric|origins=grc καρκίνος}}

+

+ ==Pronunciation==

+ * IPA: UK /ˈkæn.sə/, US /ˈkæn.sɚ/^(Roach et al. 2011)

+

+ ==Etymology==

+ It is [[bor|la|cancer|t=a crab, a creeping ulcer, tumor, the constellation Cancer]],^(Etymonline)^(Barnhart 1988) a form modelled on and cognate with Greek [[grc|καρκίνος|tr=karkínos]], which has the same three meanings, crab, tumor and constellation.^(Etymonline)^(Barnhart 1988) Barnhart also compares Sanskrit karkaṭa- “crab” and karkara- “hard”,^(Barnhart 1988)^(MWU 2024) and Etymonline takes the words to a reduplicated form of [[ine-pro|*kar-|t=hard]].^(Etymonline)^(Barnhart 1988) The Greek physician Galen explained the medical sense by the likeness of the swollen veins around the sore to a crab's legs.^(Barnhart 1988)^(Cresswell 2021)^(NODE 1998) Its doublet [[canker]] was the usual form for the disease until the 17th century.^(Cresswell 2021)^(NODE 1998)^(Barnhart 1988)

+

+ ==Earliest recorded meaning==

+ Old English cancer, a spreading sore, malignant or not, is found about 1000 in Ælfric;^(Barnhart 1988)^(Etymonline) the sign of the zodiac is from about 1380, in Chaucer's translation of Boethius.^(Barnhart 1988)^(OED 1989)

+

+ ==Semantic evolution==

+ The Old English word was displaced by the French-influenced canker^(Etymonline)^(Cresswell 2021) but was reintroduced in the modern medical sense, a malignant tumor, about 1600,^(Etymonline) first in Holland's translation of Pliny (1601).^(Barnhart 1988)^(OED 1989) When canker returned to the language of medicine as cancer, canker became the word for various plant diseases.^(Cresswell 2021) The figurative sense, a spreading evil, is from 1651.^(OED 1989) A crab itself was a cancer from 1562, later only in zoology.^(OED 1989) A person born under the sign of Cancer is from 1894.^(Etymonline)^(OED 1989) Since the sun is in Cancer at the summer solstice, Latin writers linked the constellation with summer heat and the south.^(Etymonline) ''Cancer stick'', “a cigarette”, is slang from 1959.^(Etymonline) ''Cancerous'' is from 1563.^(Barnhart 1988)

+

+ ==Timeline==

+ * c. 1000 – Old English, a spreading sore.^(Barnhart 1988)

+ * c. 1380 – the sign of the zodiac.^(Barnhart 1988)

+ * 1562 – a crab.^(OED 1989)

+ * 1563 – ''cancerous''.^(Barnhart 1988)

+ * 1601 – a malignant tumor.^(Barnhart 1988)^(OED 1989)

+ * 1651 – a spreading evil.^(OED 1989)

+ * 1894 – a person born under Cancer.^(Etymonline)^(OED 1989)

+ * 1959 – ''cancer stick''.^(Etymonline)

+

+ ==Modern meaning==

+ ===Noun===

+ # A disease caused by the uncontrolled growth of abnormal [[cell|alt=cells]] that can spread to other parts of the body; a malignant [[tumor]].^(AHD)^(MW Collegiate)

+ # Something evil that spreads and destroys.^(AHD)^(OED 1989)

+ # ''Cancer'': A [[constellation]] between Gemini and Leo; the fourth sign of the [[zodiac]]; a person born under it.^(AHD)^(MW Collegiate)

+

+ ==Word family==

+ * [[cancerous]]

+ * [[cancerously]]

+ * [[cancered]]

+ * [[cancerousness]]

+ * [[anticancer]]

+ * [[canceration]]

+ * [[precancer]]

+ * [[cancer stick]]

+

+ ==Related words==

+ * [[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.^(Wright 1898)

+

+ ==References==

+ {{reflist}}