I. ˈkan(t)sə(r), -ˈaa-, -ˈai- noun
Etymology: Middle English, Cancer (sign of the zodiac), from Latin, crab, cancer; akin to Greek karkinos crab, cancer, Sanskrit karkaṭa crab, karkara hard — more at hard
1. -s usually capitalized : the 4th sign of the zodiac — see sign table
2. -s
a. : a mass of tissue cells possessed of potentially unlimited growth that serves no useful function in the body, robs the host of nutrients necessary for survival, expands locally by invasion and systemically by transmission of cells along lymphatic and blood pathways, and unless recognized early and removed kills the host and that is usually considered due to a combination of carcinogens and predisposing factors (as heredity, age, trauma, or chronic irritation), cancer itself never being directly inherited though a predisposition to certain forms may be heritable — compare carcinoma , sarcoma ; neoplasm , tumor ; metastasis
b. : an abnormal condition characterized by the presence of a cancer or cancers
3. -s : an often malignant source of spreading and corroding destructive evil
a man who offends in this way should be removed at once as a cancer in the body politic — Robert Graves
4. -s
a. : an enlarged tumorlike growth (as that typical of crown gall)
b. : a disease characterized by such growths
5. capitalized
[New Latin, from Latin]
: a genus of crabs almost cosmopolitan in distribution both in deep water and alongshore containing important edible crabs and common shore crabs (as the Dungeness crab, the rock crabs, and the Jonah crab) and being the type of the family Cancridae
II. noun
Usage: usually capitalized
: one born under the astrological sign Cancer