Carcinoma
noun ·Moderate ·College level
Definitions
- 1 An invasive malignant tumour derived from epithelial tissue that tends to metastasize to other areas of the body. countable
- 2 any malignant tumor derived from epithelial tissue; one of the four major types of cancer wordnet
- 3 A form of cancer; (uncountable) cancer in general as a disease. countable, obsolete
"Take the fatteſt and fulleſt Figs you can get, lay them upon the ugly and ill favored tumor called Carcinoma, i. the Canker, ſo it be not yet exulcerat, I aſſure you it is a ſoveraine remedie, and hardly can be matched againe: […]"
Example
More examples"Take the fatteſt and fulleſt Figs you can get, lay them upon the ugly and ill favored tumor called Carcinoma, i. the Canker, ſo it be not yet exulcerat, I aſſure you it is a ſoveraine remedie, and hardly can be matched againe: […]"
Etymology
Learned borrowing from Latin carcinōma (“tumour; ulcer; carcinoma”), from Ancient Greek κᾰρκῐ́νωμᾰ (kărkĭ́nōmă, “sore, ulcer; cancer”), from καρκινόω (karkinóō, “to make (something) resemble a crab”, in the mediopassive "to become cancerous; to suffer from cancer") + -μᾰ (-mă, action noun suffix). Καρκινόω is derived from καρκῐ́νος (karkĭ́nos, “crab; the zodiac sign Cancer; sore, ulcer; cancer”) (according to Paul of Aegina (c. 625 – c. 690) in his Medical Compendium in Seven Books, because the veins surrounding a cancerous tumour resemble a crab’s legs). The English word is a doublet of cancer, and may be analysed as carcino- + -oma. The plural form carcinomata is a learned borrowing from Latin carcinōmata, from Ancient Greek κᾰρκῐνώμᾰτᾰ (kărkĭnṓmătă).
Related phrases
More for "carcinoma"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.