cankered
Americanadjective
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morally corrupt.
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(of plants)
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destroyed or having portions destroyed by the feeding of a cankerworm.
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having a cankerous part; infected with a canker.
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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 time I was there, you could still find a few copter-trooper helmets and old cankered shells.
From Thy Rocks and Rills by Gilbert, Robert E.
The bare suspicion becomes a certainty in the minds of those who were once that man's friends.—And his life is cankered at the outset.
From The Ivory Gate, a new edition by Besant, Walter, Sir
Meantime went Zephyrus across the sea, To bring her sisters to her arms again, Though of that message little was he fain, Knowing their malice and their cankered hearts.
From The Earthly Paradise A Poem by Morris, William
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.
