CANKER, noun 1. A disease incident to trees, which causes the bark to rot and fall. 2. A popular name of certain small eroding ulcers in the mouth, particularly of children. They are generally covered with a whitish slough. 3. A virulent, corroding ulcer; or any thing that corrodes, corrupts or destroys. Sacrilege may prove an eating canker And their word will eat as doth a canker Tim. 2. 4. An eating, corroding, virulent humor; corrosion. 5. A kind of rose, the dog rose. 6. In farriery, a running thrush of the worst kind; a disease in horses feet, discharging a fetid matter from the cleft in the middle of the frog. CANKER, verb intransitive To grow corrupt; to decay, or waste away by means of any noxious cause; to grow rusty, or to be oxydized, as a metal.
Source: Webster's 1828 American Dictionary ↗ · public-domain · returned verbatim, no AI