Meanings
comparative more cancerous · superlative most cancerous
- medicineRelating to or affected with cancer.
On Sunday at five they operated to remove the cancerous kidney.
2002, Zadie Smith, The Autograph Man, Penguin Books (2003), page 3681 more example
A pilot study conducted in 2023 by the department of obstetrics and gynecology at the Erlangen University Hospital in Germany involved 104 patients and concluded that clinical breast examinations by MTEs who were visually impaired were as accurate in identifying potentially cancerous tumors as doctors trained in this procedure.
2024 September 8, Kamala Thiagarajan, “Women who are blind play a critical role in identifying possible breast cancers”, in NPRAntonyms: noncancerous
- derogatoryslangExtremely unpleasant; detestable.
I love this show, but the fanbase is so toxic and cancerous.
Synonyms: AIDS, cancer, pure cancer
Synonyms & antonyms
adjectiveRelating to or affected with cancer.
adjectiveExtremely unpleasant; detestable.
More synonyms by meaning
adjectiverelating to or affected with cancer
adjectivelike a cancer; an evil that grows and spreads
Synonym sets from Open English WordNet, CC BY 4.0.
Origin
- Latincancerōsus
- Middle Englishcancerous
- Englishcancerous
From Middle English cancerous, from Latin cancerōsus, from cancer (“crab; tumor, cancer”) + -ōsus (adjective-forming suffix). By surface analysis, cancer + -ous.
More words from Middle English, Latin
Full word history & related roots →Translations
Arabic سَرَطَانِيّ
- سَرَطَانِيّ (saraṭāniyy)relating to or affected with cancer
Catalan cancerós
- cancerósrelating to or affected with cancer
Czech rakovinný
- rakovinnýrelating to or affected with cancer
Esperanto kancera
- kancerarelating to or affected with cancer
Finnish syöpäinen
- syöpäinenrelating to or affected with cancer
French cancéreux
- cancéreuxrelating to or affected with cancer
German krebsartig
- krebsartigrelating to or affected with cancer
Irish ailseach
- ailseachrelating to or affected with cancer
Italian canceroso
- cancerosorelating to or affected with cancer
Portuguese canceroso
- cancerosorelating to or affected with cancer
Romanian canceros
- cancerosrelating to or affected with cancer
Russian ра́ковый, злока́чественный
- ра́ковый (rákovyj)relating to or affected with cancer
- злока́чественный (zlokáčestvennyj)growing or spreading rapidly to the point of harm
Spanish canceroso
- cancerosorelating to or affected with cancer
Turkish kanserli
- kanserlirelating to or affected with cancer
Welsh canseraidd
- canseraiddrelating to or affected with cancer
Cite this entry
cancerous. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/cancerous
“cancerous.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/cancerous. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “cancerous,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/cancerous.
Source: cancerous on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.