Cankery
adj ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 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 of the Spring or Summer you will fee a fine new bark coming on. When the old bark is cankery, you must pare is off with a draw-knife, or such a long knife as I have had made on purpose, especially for wall-trees; where the draw-knife cannot be applied next the wall."
- 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 ."
- 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."
- 4 Corrosive.
"And awful things happen to people who break their promises, things that make their insides turn green and cankery . ยท"
- 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."
Show 2 more definitions
- 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."
- 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."
Example
More examples"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 of the Spring or Summer you will fee a fine new bark coming on. When the old bark is cankery, you must pare is off with a draw-knife, or such a long knife as I have had made on purpose, especially for wall-trees; where the draw-knife cannot be applied next the wall."
Etymology
From canker + -y.
More for "cankery"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.