as in to poison
to lower in character, dignity, or quality
such shameless ambulance chasing cankers the legal profession
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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
as in rot
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Example Sentences
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Recent Examples of canker
Tim Johnson, chicagotribune.com, 1 Aug. 2019
Sally Jenkins, The Atlantic, 18 Dec. 2025
Fungal disease, butternut canker, wiped out about 90% of the state's butternut trees.
—Jenna Prestininzi, Freep.com, 9 Oct. 2025
See All Example Sentences for canker
Verb
Start by removing all blighted twigs and cankered branches 6 to 10 inches below the edge of visible infection.
—Tim Johnson, chicagotribune.com, 1 Aug. 2019
Noun
Even the most superb body begins to diminish in a person’s early 30s, thanks to the onset of sarcopenia, which sounds like a canker but means the incremental decline of muscle mass.
—Sally Jenkins, The Atlantic, 18 Dec. 2025
Fungal disease, butternut canker, wiped out about 90% of the state's butternut trees.
—Jenna Prestininzi, Freep.com, 9 Oct. 2025
See All Example Sentences for canker
Recent Examples of Synonyms for canker
Verb
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The second is a 100-day sludge line that will poison the reserves oil-hungry nations are racing to drain.—
Siddharth Misra,
Fortune,
28 Mar. 2026
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But would someone go so far as to poison a tree to keep the view open?—
Ashley Mackin Solomon,
San Diego Union-Tribune,
27 Mar. 2026
Noun
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Concerns about 'brain rot' behavior Using a statistical model, researchers then predicted how changes in mental activity would affect dementia risk.—
Kaan Ozcan,
NBC news,
29 Mar. 2026
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Black, white, colorful, graphic—the perfect baggy tee will hold your hand through low-key days at the office, weekends in the park, and your laziest bed-rot days.—
Kelsey Stiegman,
Glamour,
27 Mar. 2026
Verb
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To win, Orbán has to corrupt that searing national memory, and to substitute fear of Ukraine.—
Anne Applebaum,
The Atlantic,
27 Mar. 2026
-
Goodwill is corrupted on arrival by the modern virtue of avarice.—
Andy Andersen,
Vulture,
23 Mar. 2026
Noun
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If a single atom of that sample decays, the vial breaks, and the cat dies.—
Camila Domonoske,
NPR,
27 Mar. 2026
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The universe, however, consists of matter but almost no antimatter, which exists naturally only in small quantities, created by radioactive decay and cosmic ray collisions.—
Jacopo Prisco,
CNN Money,
27 Mar. 2026
Verb
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More than 100 aircraft launched from land and sea in the first day, with cyber and space campaigns degrading Iranian communications and sensors while the air campaign struck command-and-control centers, ballistic-missile sites, naval forces and intelligence infrastructure.—
Micah McCartney,
MSNBC Newsweek,
1 Apr. 2026
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Instead, officials refocused the strategic narrative on their ambitions to degrade Iran's conventional military – especially ballistic missile – and nuclear programs.—
David Brennan,
ABC News,
1 Apr. 2026
Noun
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For Brvenik, the cancer patient, the health and financial pressures are one and the same.—
Max Klaver,
Miami Herald,
31 Mar. 2026
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Millennial women are getting cancer.—
Rachel Hale,
USA Today,
31 Mar. 2026
Verb
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For years, lawyers have alleged that inmates receive expired, undercooked or contaminated food, including spoiled meat and deteriorated dairy products.—
Michael Rios,
CNN Money,
26 Mar. 2026
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Now the war has turned into a race to stabilize the rapidly deteriorating global economic order, central to which is reopening the Strait of Hormuz.—
Sudarsan Raghavan,
New Yorker,
25 Mar. 2026
Noun
-
After its seemingly benign opening, the movie captures the appalling conditions under which the inmates are kept, with unblinking scenes of bullying, force feeding, strip searches and squalor.—
Chloe Veltman,
NPR,
16 Feb. 2026
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Many came from grinding poverty and squalor.—
Alexandra Schwartz,
New Yorker,
9 Feb. 2026
Cite this Entry
“Canker.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/canker. Accessed 3 Apr. 2026.
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