canker
2
9.3
- noun
- /ˈkæŋkər/
- Archaic
- Worse, the rotting canker of evil at the heart of Gotham that the Joker had sought to reveal has not been fundamentally addressed; it has merely been papered over by a stifling layer of law and order.
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Watch on YouTubePerhaps these cankers on the landscape are in some sense living.
- Perhaps these cankers on the landscape are in some sense living.
Examples
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The problem of inequality in the United States is a canker destroying our society and values from the inside out.
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Reader! When you behold an aspect for whose constant gloom and frown you cannot account... be sure that there is a canker somewhere, and a canker not the less deeply corroding because concealed.
Academic text (1992) -
You and your kind are a canker on the body social.
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"The people will make an end of this canker of privilege."
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It is a deadly canker in the body politic, and I will have it out!
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These childhood tragedies are inclined to corrode the soul, to leave a canker in the mind.
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He saw corruption as a canker that undermined the integrity of their community.
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Many believe that ignorance is a canker that leads to societal decline.
Synonyms
6
5.3
A person whose bad actions harm others in a group
4
9.7
A harmful influence that spreads and is hard to stop
Antonyms
Compounds
- Specialized
A disease that attacks chestnut trees, making sores on the bark and often killing the tree
How Harmful
Surface Forms
Etymology
Canker comes from the old Latin cancer 'crab', first used for sores that 'eat away' the body; a helpful way to remember the figurative use is to imagine something small slowly destroying a group or idea. So a canker is a harmful, lasting influence that eats away at morale or trust.