# cancer

Pronunciation: US say "KAN-sur" /ˈkænsɚ/; UK say "KAN-suh" /ˈkænsə/

## Noun

1. A disease in which the cells of a tissue multiply out of control, often rapidly.
   - Simple: An illness in which cells in part of the body increase in number without control, often very fast.
   - _Doctors caught the cancer early, before it could spread to her lungs._
   - _Researchers are testing whether the new drug works against several rare cancers._
3. Something harmful that spreads throughout a larger whole, such as an organization or a society, and damages it.
   - Simple: Something bad that spreads through something else, like a group or a place, and harms 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._

## Proper noun · Cancer

2. In 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.
   - Simple: The star sign of the crab, ruled by the Moon, for people born from late June to late July.
   - _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._
5. A constellation of the zodiac whose stars are said to form the shape of a crab.
   - Simple: A group of stars in the zodiac that is said to look like 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._

## Noun · Cancer

4. A person whose star sign in astrology is Cancer, the sign of the crab.
   - Simple: Someone born under the star sign Cancer, 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._

## Adjective

6. Extremely unpleasant and annoying to deal with. *(slang)*
   - Simple: Really unpleasant and very annoying.
   - _Honestly, the lag on this server is really cancer tonight._
   - _That patch made sniping so cancer that half my squad quit the game._

## Origin

**Meanings 1, 3, 6** — 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.
**Meanings 2, 4–5** — 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.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/cancer (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).