# tumour

Pronunciation: UK say "TYOO-muh" /tjuː.mə/; US say "TOO-mer" /tuː.məɹ/

## Noun

1. A mass of tissue in or on the body formed by cells growing abnormally, which may be benign or malignant; in older medical use, any abnormal swelling.
   - Simple: A lump or growth in the body that should not be there, which may or may not be cancer.
   - _Surgeons at the hospital removed a benign tumour from her spinal cord._
   - _Doctors are testing whether the drug can shrink tumours in patients with advanced bowel cancer._

## Origin

The word came into Middle English from Old French tumour. Its source is Latin tumor, 'swelling', a noun from the verb tumeō, 'to bulge, swell', which goes back to the Proto-Indo-European root *tewh₂-, 'to swell'. English thumb is a related word.

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