Chancre
noun ·Moderate ·College level
Definitions
- 1 Skin lesion, sometimes associated with certain contagious diseases such as syphilis.
"The nurse stood up and went towards the door. At that point the caretaker said to me, "It's a chancre she's got." I didn't understand, so I looked at the nurse and saw that she had a bandage round her head just below the eyes. Where her nose should have been, the bandage was flat. Her face seemed to be nothing but a white bandage."
- 2 a small hard painless nodule at the site of entry of a pathogen (as syphilis) wordnet
Example
More examples"The nurse stood up and went towards the door. At that point the caretaker said to me, "It's a chancre she's got." I didn't understand, so I looked at the nurse and saw that she had a bandage round her head just below the eyes. Where her nose should have been, the bandage was flat. Her face seemed to be nothing but a white bandage."
Etymology
Borrowed from French chancre (“cancer”), from Latin cancer (“crab”). Cognate to canker and cancer.