This week's theme
Words from Harry Potter

This week's words
scud
resplendent
slipstream
heinous
sepulchral
higgledy-piggledy
canker


This week's comments
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Next week's theme
Words coined in science fiction

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A.Word.A.Day

PRONUNCIATION:

(KANG-kuhr)

MEANING:

noun:	1. A source of corruption or decay.
	2. Ulcerous sores in the mouth; also any of various diseases affecting animals and plants.
verb tr., intr.:	1. To corrupt or to become corrupted.
	2. To infect with or be infected with canker.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Old English cancer (crab, tumor). Ultimately from the Indo-European root kar-/ker- (hard), which also gave us standard, cancer, and hard. Earliest documented use: 1384.

USAGE:

"And in your family, so in the world ... we shall cut away the canker that infects us until only those of the true blood remain."
J.K. Rowling; Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows; Bloomsbury; 2010.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: