cankery

Adjective

cankery (comparative more cankery, superlative most cankery)

1. Full of canker (plant disease); diseased and decaying.
   • Mix fresh cow-dung with urine and soap-suds, and with this mixture, was over the sems and branches of the trees, as a white-washer would wash the ceiling or walls of a room; taking care to cut off all the cankery parts , and to scrape off all the moss , before you lay the mixture on. In the course...1804 September, Edwards, Earl of Dundonald, “Critical Catalogue: A Treatise shewing the intimate Connection that subsists between Agriculture and Chemistry”, in Agricultural Magazine, volume 11, page...
   • In the pruning of standards give only occasional pruning, to reform or remove any casual irregularity from cross-placed or very crowded branches; and take away all cankery and decayed wood .1830, John Baxter, The Library of Agricultural and Horticultural Knowledge, page 147
2. Marked by cankers; ulcerous.
   • It is powerfully effecacious in the cleansing and arresting the progress of cankery affections of every kind, and removing all local foulness from any part .1833, "Cincinnatus", “Communications”, in Healthside, volume 1, page 268
   • A Child of Mr Joshua Fales, aged 6 1/2 years of a cankery Disorder .1888, Church Records, Dedham Massachusetts, edited by Don Gleason Hill, Record of Baptisms, Marriages and Deaths, and Admissions to the Church and Dismissals therefrom,, page 102
3. Rusty; corroded.
   • The water in this pit varied from two inches to a foot in depth, and in some places it had stood so many years that it was cankery, or corroded, and working in it barefooted, it would eat the skin off between my toes, making it very painful.1873, Isaac W. Ambler, William P. Freeman, "Truth is Stranger Than Fiction".: The Life of Sergeant I.W. Ambler, page 34
   • The third is of St. James, who saith to covetous rich men after this manner: 'Weep and howl, ye rich men, for the misery that shall come upon you: your riches do rot, your clothes be motheated, your gold and silver wax cankery and rusty, and their rust shall bear witness against you, and consume...1903, Richard Watson Dixon, History of the Church of England: Mary. A.D. 1553-1558, page 538
4. Corrosive.
   • And awful things happen to people who break their promises, things that make their insides turn green and cankery . ·1919, Kate Langley Bosher, His Friend, Miss McFarlane, page 22
   • But in the back o' his head the devil would prod an' the cankery cravin ' would eat deeper.1955, Delight Youngs, The Gladesman, page 216
5. Metallic or bitter.
   • Lastly, there was the 'cankery' taste of the mouth; the 'metallic' taste of the boy; the watery state of the mouth and lips in each; the teasing, hacking, dry cough, common to all, and affecting the children, particularly towards the last.1842, John Wilson, “Ulcer Sympptoms Affecting An Entire Family and Terminating in Death”, in The Chemist, volume 3, page 190
   • He came from Sea in the Year 1727, or the Beginning of the Year 1728, after which he made a Visit or two to his Friends in Surry in one of which, his mother having prepar'd a Pot of Sage Tea for her own drinking; but the Father, unhappily for him (tho' he had hardly ever been known to drink Tea)...1870, John Graham, Summing Up of John Graham, Esq., to the Jury, on the Part of the Defence, on the Trial of Daniel MacFarland, page 10
6. Surly; cantankerous.
   • Every body kens, Miss Mizy, that thou's a cankery creature , and that had thou no been sae, I might hae been quit o' thee lang syne; but nae fool cast up that would be fashed wi' thee.1822, John Galt, Sir Andrew Wylie, of that ilk
   • "He was always one of them cankery chiels as never have a kindly word for man nor beast , " said the landlord .1865, Anthony Trollope, Can you forgive her?
7. Characteristic of canker (disease of a horse's foot, characterized by separation of the horny portion and the development of fungoid growths)
   • Pares from their feet the cankery rot.1936, Walter Savage Landor, Thomas Earle Welby, Stephen Wheeler, The Complete Works of Walter Savage Landor, page 53