cankering

Verb

canker (third-person singular simple present cankers, present participle cankering, simple past and past participle cankered)

1. (transitive) To affect as a canker; to eat away; to corrode; to consume.
   • Still onward winds the dreary way; / I with it; for I long to prove / No lapse of moons can canker Love, / Whatever fickle tongues may say.1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], “Canto XXVI”, in In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, page 43
2. (transitive) To infect or pollute; to corrupt.
3. (intransitive) To waste away, grow rusty, or be oxidized, as a mineral.
4. (intransitive) To be or become diseased, or as if diseased, with canker; to grow corrupt; to become venomous.
   • as with age his body uglier grows,
     So his mind cankers.1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published...

See all 13 meanings of canker