cancer

plural cancers

1. countableuncountablemedicineA disease in which the cells of a tissue undergo uncontrolled (often rapid) proliferation.

   Sure, almost everything 'causes cancer' now. That said, I don't go hugging nuclear waste or acting like cancer itself is some conspiracy.

   5 more examples

   She's ill. She's dying. She has cancer of the pancreas, stomach, just about everywhere... She's been dying for about six years now. We're getting used to it.

   1999 February 3, Anthony Horowitz et al., “Strangler's Wood”, in Midsomer Murders

   If successful, Edison and Ford—in 1914—would move society away from the[…]hazards of gasoline cars: air and water pollution, noise and noxiousness, constant coughing and the undeniable rise in cancers caused by smoke exhaust particulates.

   2006, Edwin Black, chapter 1, in Internal Combustion

   Risk is everywhere. From tabloid headlines insisting that coffee causes cancer (yesterday, of course, it cured it) to stern government warnings about alcohol and driving, the world is teeming with goblins. For each one there is a frighteningly precise measurement of just how likely it is to jump from the shadows and get you.

   2013 June 22, “Snakes and ladders”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8841, archived from the original on 11 Jan 2025, page 76

   Cancers are common diseases; in the aggregate, they are among the leading causes of death nationally and worldwide, and their incidence is increasing as the population ages.

   2015 February 26, Francis S. Collins, Harold Varmus, “A New Initiative on Precision Medicine”, in The New England Journal of Medicine, volume 372, number 9, →DOI, pages 793–794

   Almost half of the participants agreed that "It seems like everything causes cancer"...

   2022 December 21, Laura Costas et al., “Everything Causes Cancer?...”, in British Medical Journal

   Synonyms: malignancy

2. countablefigurativelyuncountableSomething damaging that spreads throughout something else.

   The disease of the self runs through my blood; It's a cancer fatal to my soul.

   1991, Charlie Peacock, “In the Light”

   4 more examples

   I began by telling the President that there was a cancer growing on the Presidency, and if the cancer was not removed, the President himself would be killed by it.

   1973 June 25, John Dean

   Sierra Leone's post-dictator problems are almost absurd in their breadth. It once exported rice; now it can't feed itself. The life span of the average citizen is 39, the shortest in Africa. Unemployment stands at 87 percent and tuberculosis is spreading out of control. Corruption, brazen and ubiquitous, is a cancer on the economy.

   1999, Bruce Clifford Ross-Larson, Effective Writing, page 134

   The following day, Mr. [Stephen K.] Bannon called Mr. [Ben] Shapiro a “cancer” on the movement, and Ms. [Megyn] Kelly said she resented Mr. Shapiro’s attacks.

   2025 December 20, Richard Fausset, Ken Bensinger, quoting Steve Bannon, “Turning Point’s Annual Gathering Turns Into a Gripefest”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 22 Dec 2025

   He [Stephen Miller] called “leftwing political terrorism” a “fatal cancer of civilization”. He said that its politics, left to run its course, “always becomes a gulag”.

   2026 July 22, Robert B. Shpiner, “Three speeches on a single day signaled a dying American democracy”, in The Guardian, →ISSN

   Synonyms: growth, lichen

comparative more cancer · superlative most cancer

1. offensiveslangvulgarExtremely unpleasant and annoying.

   I used to love this game, but the new meta is straight up cancer.

   Synonyms: cancerous, AIDS

symbol ♋︎

1. astronomyA constellation of the zodiac traditionally figured in the shape of a crab.

   And add more coals to Cancer when he burns / With entertaining great Hyperion.

   c. 1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Troylus and Cressida”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene iii]

   1 more example

   Cancer was occupied by a scarab in Egypt, so the general shape of animal may have been suggested by Praesepe.

   1998, John H. Roger, “Origins of the ancient constellations: I. The Mesopotamian traditions”, in Journal of the British Astronomy Association, volume 108, number 1, page 27, column 2

   Synonyms: Crab

2. astrologyThe zodiac sign for the crab, ruled by the Moon and covering June 22–July 22 (tropical astrology) or July 16–August 15 (sidereal astrology).

plural Cancers

1. Someone with a Cancer star sign.

   ‘All right, so what are Cancers apart from sad, then?’ Lizzie asked.

   2022, Candice Carty-Williams, People Person, Trapeze, page 189

   Synonyms: Cancerian