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Oct 17, 2013
This week's theme
Words from diseases

This week's words
measly
anemic
sclerotic
cancerous
pestilent

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A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg

cancerous

PRONUNCIATION:
(KAN-suh-ruhs)

MEANING:
adjective:
1. Having a harmful, uncontrolled growth.
2. Of or relating to cancer: a malignant growth or tumor.

ETYMOLOGY:
From Latin cancer (crab, tumor, cancer). Canker/cankerous are from the same root. Earliest documented use: 1425.

USAGE:
"The hope implicit in technology's potential to improve the world is balanced here by a cancerous downside that eats holes in the fabric of modern relationships."
Gordon Farrer; The Sydney Morning Herald (Australia); Oct 3, 2013.

See more usage examples of cancerous in Vocabulary.com's dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
If the rich could hire someone else to die for them, the poor would make a wonderful living. -Jewish proverb

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