cancer
- 1A disease in which the cells of a tissue multiply out of control, often rapidly.
Doctors caught the cancer early, before it could spread to her lungs.
Researchers are testing whether the new drug works against several rare cancers.
UsageSay she has cancer (no a) for the disease, but several rare cancers for kinds; also lung cancer, skin cancer.
Similarmalignancy
- 2In astrology, the sign of the crab, ruled by the Moon, covering June 22 to July 22 in the tropical zodiac or July 16 to August 15 in the sidereal zodiac.
Anyone born between late June and late July falls under Cancer, which astrologers say is ruled by the Moon.
According to the astrologer, Venus moving through Cancer favors family plans this week.
UsagePlanets and birthdays fall in Cancer; people are born under Cancer and called a Cancer.
- 3Something harmful that spreads throughout a larger whole, such as an organization or a society, and damages it.
Corruption had become a cancer eating away at every level of government.
The new coach vowed to cut out the cancer of selfishness in the locker room.
UsageOften a cancer on a group, or the cancer of a vice: the cancer of corruption.
Less common meanings
- 4A person whose star sign in astrology is Cancer, the sign of the crab.
As a Cancer, he likes to joke that worrying is written in his stars.
Her astrology podcast claims that Cancers make loyal but moody friends.
UsageWritten with a capital: a Cancer, two Cancers, as a Cancer.
SimilarCancerian
Note
Talk of the sign's supposed character comes with it, as when Lizzie in Candice Carty-Williams's People Person (2022) asks "what are Cancers apart from sad, then?"
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 3 facts
- Candice Carty-Williams wrote People Person. hachette.co.uk
- People Person was first published in 2022. vorablesen.de
- Lizzie asks the quoted question in People Person; the quotation accurately reproduces part of her sentence. en.wiktionary.org
- 5A constellation of the zodiac whose stars are said to form the shape of a crab.
The Beehive Cluster, a loose swarm of stars, sits near the middle of Cancer.
Through binoculars, the faint outline of Cancer is easier to trace on a moonless spring evening.
Note
The constellation and the star sign share a name but no longer line up: the slow wobble of Earth's axis has shifted the seasons against the stars, so the Sun now reaches the constellation weeks after it enters the sign. Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida pictures Cancer burning as it hosts "great Hyperion", the midsummer sun.
Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 5 facts
- The constellation and tropical astrological sign share the name Cancer but occupy different positions. en.wikipedia.org
- Precession is a slow wobble of Earth's axis that changes the Sun's position against the stars on a given seasonal date. eso.org
- The Sun reaches the constellation Cancer several weeks after entering the tropical sign. robinfo.oma.be
- Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida depicts Cancer burning while entertaining 'great Hyperion'; Ulysses speaks the lines. folger.edu
- 'Great Hyperion' refers here to the Sun at midsummer. upload.wikimedia.org
- 6Extremely unpleasant and annoying to deal with.
Honestly, the lag on this server is really cancer tonight.
That patch made sniping so cancer that half my squad quit the game.
UsageUsed after a verb or with so or really, without a: the lag is cancer, so cancer.
Note
The slang is most at home in gaming chat, for whatever spoils the fun: a new meta, a laggy server.
Showing meanings only.
Practice
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Origins
English borrowed cancer from Latin cancer ("crab"). The medical sense of the Latin word is a calque, or loan translation, of the Ancient Greek καρκίνος (karkínos), which meant "crab," "ulcer," and "cancer," and the two words may also share an ancestor. Tumors got the name because the swollen veins around them looked like a crab's legs. Canker and chancre are doublets of cancer.
From Latin cancer ("crab"), translating the Ancient Greek name of the constellation, Karkínos ("crab"), which itself translated Akkadian allutu ("crab"), from a Sumerian name for the same stars.