Definition of "canker"

canker¹

/ˈkæŋkɚ/

noun
countable and uncountable, plural cankers
1. (phytopathology) A plant disease marked by gradual decay.
2. A region of dead plant tissue caused by such a disease.
  Quotations
  Slightly sunken brown cankers of variable size and shape affect stem parts primarily below the soil line.
  1977, The Potato: Major Diseases and Nematodes, International Potato Center, page 46
3. A worm or grub that destroys plant buds or leaves; cankerworm.
  Quotations
  loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud […]
  1609, William Shakespeare, “Sonnet 35”, in Shake-speares Sonnets. […], London: By G[eorge] Eld for T[homas] T[horpe] and are to be sold by William Aspley
4. A corroding or sloughing ulcer; especially a spreading gangrenous ulcer or collection of ulcers in or about the mouth.
5. Anything which corrodes, corrupts, or destroys.
  Quotations
  the cankers of envy and faction
  c. 1690, Sir William Temple, Of Heroick Virtue
  There’s canker at the root, your seedDenies the blessing of the sun,The light essential to your need.Your hopes are murdered and undone.
  1941, Theodore Roethke, “Feud”, in Open House; republished in The Collected Poems of Theodore Roethke, 1975, page 4
6. A kind of wild rose; the dog rose.
  Quotations
  To put down Richard, that sweet lovely rose,An plant this thorn, this canker, Bolingbroke?
  c. 1596–1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Second Part of Henry the Fourth, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act I, scene iii]
7. An obstinate and often incurable disease of a horse's foot, characterized by separation of the horny portion and the development of fungoid growths. Usually resulting from neglected thrush.
8. An avian disease affecting doves, poultry, parrots and birds of prey, caused by Trichomonas gallinae.

canker²

/ˈkæŋkɚ/

verb
third-person singular simple present cankers, present participle cankering, simple past and past participle cankered
1. (transitive) To affect as a canker; to eat away; to corrode; to consume.
  Quotations
  Still onward winds the dreary way; / I with it; for I long to prove / No lapse of moons can canker Love, / Whatever fickle tongues may say.
  1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], Canto XXVI, page 43
2. (transitive) To infect or pollute; to corrupt.
3. (intransitive) To waste away, grow rusty, or be oxidized, as a mineral.
4. (intransitive) To be or become diseased, or as if diseased, with canker; to grow corrupt; to become venomous.
  Quotations
  as with age his body uglier grows,So his mind cankers.
  1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act IV, scene i]
  […] the road, always in bad condition, was edged with dog roses that scratched the paint. Blossom after blossom crept past them, draggled by the ungenial year: some had cankered, others would never unfold:
  1972, E. M. Forster, chapter 36, in Maurice‎, Penguin, page 156

Definition of "canker"

canker1

noun

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canker2

verb

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canker¹

canker²