a. Forms: 6–8 cancrous, 7 cankrous, -ckerous, -carous, 7– cankerous. [f. CANKER sb. + -OUS, after It. cancheroso, F. chancreux.]
1. Of the nature of a CANKER, or eating sore; cancerous, gangrenous.
1543. Traheron, Vigo’s Chirurg., II. iii. 18. The begynnynge of cancrous corruption.
1616. Surflet & Markh., Countr. Farm, 390. Cankrous vlcers of the mouth.
1725. Bradley, Fam. Dict., s.v. Malanders, Being a sharp Salve, it will kill the canckerous Humour.
† b. Rusty, like rust. Obs.
1651. Biggs, New Disp., ¶ 160. A canckerous and æruginous quality.
c. Of the nature of canker or blight in plants.
1866. B. Taylor, Vineyard-Saint, Poems 206. The vines were brown with cankerous rust.
1866. Felton, Anc. & Mod. Gr., I. xi. 196. Cankerous blight, fruit-withering.
† 2. Affected with canker; in a state of decay.
1609. W. M., Man in Moone, in Halliw., Charac. Bks. (1857), 99. Your flesh, rotten; your bones, cankerous.
3. Having the qualities of a canker; eating into the flesh; corroding; infectious.
1691. T. H[ale], Acc. New Invent., 17. A Cancarous and Corroding substance.
1833. Mrs. Browning, Prometh. Bound, Poems 1850, I. 186. These cankerous fetters.
4. fig.
1620. Dekker, Dreame (1860), 18. Cank’rous enuy.
a. 1734. North, Exam., III. vi. ¶ 36. 450. His Words are cancrous, and fall as Excrements.
1735. Thomson, Liberty, IV. 50. Tyrannick rule … whose cancrous shackles seiz’d The envenom’d soul.
1881. Mrs. C. Praed, Policy & P., I. 100. A cankerous regret.
