Word.ws English Dictionary

cankered

cankered adjective: infected with a canker or having a cankerous part. Also the simple past and past participle of canker.

Adjective

cankered (comparative more cankered, superlative most cankered)

  1. Infected with a canker or having a cankerous part.
  2. Ulcerated.
  3. (figuratively) Corrupted; morally corrupt.
  4. (figuratively) Bad-tempered.

Also used as

cankered is also the simple past and past participle of canker.

Forms of cankered

comparativemore cankered
superlativemost cankered
alternative form (obsolete)cankred

Origin of cankered

From Middle English cankered, y-cancred, past participle of Middle English cankren, equivalent to canker + -ed.

From Middle English cancrede (preterite) and Middle English cankered, y-cancred (past participle) of Middle English cankren (“to canker”), equivalent to canker + -ed.

Words formed from cankered

Questions about cankered

What does cankered mean?
Cankered means infected with a canker or having a cankerous part.
What part of speech is cankered?
Cankered is an adjective.

Words near cankered in the dictionary

  1. canker flies
  2. canker fly
  3. canker rash
  4. canker sore
  5. canker sores
  6. cankered
  7. cankeredly
  8. cankeredness
  9. cankering
  10. cankerlike
  11. cankerous

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cankered (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “cankered.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/cankered. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.