canker

The word 'canker' entered Middle English from the Old North French term 'cancre', a variant of the more common 'chancre'. Both trace back to the Latin 'cancer', which originally meant 'crab' but was also applied to malignant, spreading ulcers, likely due to the perceived resemblance of the swollen veins around a sore to a crab's legs. This Latin term is of uncertain deeper origin, though a possible Proto-Indo-European root kar- meaning 'hard' has been suggested, which could relate to the crab's shell or the hardened tissue of a sore. Over time, in English, 'canker' specialized to refer to specific ulcerous diseases in humans and animals, and particularly to destructive lesions in plants, while its doublet 'cancer' became the primary term for the malignant disease in medicine.

Structure: canker (Unsegmentable) The word 'canker' is a simplex word. It is a loanword from Old North French 'cancre', which itself derived from Latin 'cancer' meaning 'crab; spreading sore'. Its functional role is as a complete lexical unit.