King James Bible Dictionary

A gangrene or mortification which gradually spreads over the whole body (2 Timothy 2:17). In James 5:3 "cankered" means "rusted" (R.V.) or tarnished.

Figurative; 2 Timothy 2:17

CANKER, noun

1. A disease incident to trees, which causes the bark to rot and fall.

2. A popular name of certain small eroding ulcers in the mouth, particularly of children. They are generally covered with a whitish slough.

3. A virulent, corroding ulcer; or any thing that corrodes, corrupts or destroys.

Sacrilege may prove an eating canker

And their word will eat as doth a canker Tim. 2.

4. An eating, corroding, virulent humor; corrosion.

5. A kind of rose, the dog rose.

6. In farriery, a running thrush of the worst kind; a disease in horses feet, discharging a fetid matter from the cleft in the middle of the frog.

CANKER, verb intransitive To grow corrupt; to decay, or waste away by means of any noxious cause; to grow rusty, or to be oxydized, as a metal.

CANKERBIT, adjective Bitten with a cankered or envenomed tooth.

CANKERED, participle passive

1. Corrupted.

2. adjective Crabbed; uncivil.

CANKEREDLY, adverb Crossly; adversely.

CANKER-FLY, noun A fly that preys on fruit.

CANKER-LIKE, adjective Eating or corrupting like a canker.

CANKEROUS, adjective Corroding like a canker.

(Heb. yelek), "the licking locust," which licks up the grass of the field; probably the locust at a certain stage of its growth, just as it emerges from the caterpillar state (Joel 1:4; 2:25). The word is rendered "caterpillar" in Psalms 105:34; Jeremiah 51:14, 17 (but R.V. "canker-worm"). "It spoileth and fleeth away" (Nahum 3:16), or as some read the passage, "The cankerworm putteth off [i.e., the envelope of its wings], and fleeth away."

Sent as a judgment
Joel 1:4; Joel 2:25; Nahum 3:15-16

[LOCUST]

CANKER-WORM, noun A worm, destructive to trees or plants. In America, this name is given to a worm that, in some years, destroys the leaves and fruit of apple trees. This animal springs from an egg deposited by a miller, that issues from the ground.

CANKERY, adjective Rusty