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say it: KANG-kur
canker is a noun and verb meaning "a fungal disease of woody plants that causes localized damage to the bark". It carries 5 recorded senses.
a fungal disease of woody plants that causes localized damage to the bark
an ulceration (especially of the lips or lining of the mouth)
a pernicious and malign influence that is hard to get rid of
“racism is a pestilence at the heart of the nation”
“according to him, I was the canker in their midst”
Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.
Definitions, synonyms and semantic relations for canker come from Princeton University’s WordNet. The pronunciation comes from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. Commonness is measured against a corpus of everyday English. Full sources and licences.