Word.ws English Dictionary

cankerworms

cankerworms is the plural of cankerworm.

Meaning of cankerworm

Noun

cankerworm (plural cankerworms)

  1. Either of two caterpillars, the larvae of geometrid moths, that are destructive to fruit, buds and leaves.
  2. (figuratively) A corrupting or destructive force.
    • O cursed Eld the cankerworme of writs, / How may these rimes, so rude as doth appeare, / Hope to endure, sith workes of heauenly wits / Are quite deuourd, and brought to nought by little bits?1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book IV, Canto II”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC

Questions about cankerworms

What is cankerworms the plural of?
Cankerworms is the plural of cankerworm.

Words near cankerworms in the dictionary

  1. cankerroot
  2. cankers
  3. cankersome
  4. cankerweed
  5. cankerworm
  6. cankerworms
  7. cankerwort
  8. cankerworts
  9. cankery
  10. cankin
  11. canking

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cankerworms (page history and authors); cankerworm (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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