cankered
Americanadjective
-
morally corrupt.
-
(of plants)
-
destroyed or having portions destroyed by the feeding of a cankerworm.
-
having a cankerous part; infected with a canker.
-
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of cankered
late Middle English word dating back to 1375–1425; see origin at canker, -ed 3
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
He has suffered for it: his health debilitated by frequent hunger strikes, his knees cankered with sores from long sessions of prayer, according to prison officials.
From Time ● Jul. 28, 2010
Hamlet paused before coming to his point “I wish to discover whether a surgeon, by cutting out the cankered spot, could restore the vital spirit to perfection.”
From "Ophelia" by Lisa Klein
The world taken 'en masse' is a monster, crammed with prejudices, packed with prepossessions, cankered with what it calls virtues, a Puritan, a prig.
From Miscellaneous Aphorisms; The Soul of Man by Oscar Wilde
I saw Thine eyes grown awful, life that looked on death, Clear purity on dark and cankered sin, The immortal on corruption,—not the eyes That erst I knew in life, but dreadfuller, And stranger.
From The Epic of Hades In Three Books by Sir Lewis Morris
But it is more like a garden than the cankered cat-walk it once was.
From The New Gulliver and Other Stories by Barry Pain
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
