Etymology

precancerous

P3R1E1C3A1N1C3E1R1O1U1S1

Today it means: Of or pertaining to growth that is likely to develop into cancer. Full definition →

English cancerous ← Middle English pre- ← Latin prae-
Ask AI about its historyChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

The story

  1. Proto-Indo-European*per-
  2. Proto-Indo-European*preh₂-
  3. Proto-Indo-European*préh₂i?
  4. Proto-Italic*prai
  5. Proto-Italic*prai-
  6. Latinprae-
  7. Middle Englishpre-
  8. Englishpre-
  9. Englishcancerous
  10. English todayprecancerous

From pre- + cancerous.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.