Cancer v. World English Historical Dictionary

Cancer v. World English Historical Dictionary Dictionary Biographies Literary Criticism Welcome Terms of Service ⧏ Previous Next ⧐ Contents Slice Contents Key Bibliographic Record Murray’s New English Dictionary. 1893, rev. 2025. Cancer v.

[f. prec. sb.] trans. To eat into as a cancer; to eat (its way) slowly and incessantly like a cancer.

1

1840.  De Quincey, Casuistry Rom. Meals, Wks. III. 280. Other things advance per saltum—they do not silently cancer their way onwards. Ibid. (1858), Autobiog. Sk., Wks. (1863), XIV. 93. The strulbrug of Swift … was a wreck, a shell, that had been burned hollow and cancered by the fierce furnace of life.

2

  Hence Cancered ppl. a., affected with cancer.

3

a. 1774.  Goldsmith, Nat. Hist. (1776), VII. 102. The application of toads to a cancered breast.

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