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Feb 9, 2014
This week's theme
Words from Harry Potter

This week's words
scud
resplendent
slipstream
heinous
sepulchral
higgledy-piggledy
canker

Harry Potter book set
Books in the Harry Potter series

This week's comments
AWADmail 606

Next week's theme
Words coined in science fiction
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A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg

canker

PRONUNCIATION:
(KANG-kuhr)

MEANING:
noun:1. A source of corruption or decay.
 2. Ulcerous sores in the mouth; also any of various diseases affecting animals and plants.
verb tr., intr.:1. To corrupt or to become corrupted.
 2. To infect with or be infected with canker.

ETYMOLOGY:
From Old English cancer (crab, tumor). Ultimately from the Indo-European root kar-/ker- (hard), which also gave us standard, cancer, and hard. Earliest documented use: 1384.

USAGE:
"And in your family, so in the world ... we shall cut away the canker that infects us until only those of the true blood remain."
J.K. Rowling; Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows; Bloomsbury; 2010.

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

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
My country is the world, and my religion is to do good. -Thomas Paine, philosopher and writer (1737-1809)

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