cancrum

cancrum

1. accusative singular of cancer

From cancer (“crab; cancer”). The use of cancrum as a neuter nominative/accusative form may derive from a misunderstanding of the gender of the masculine accusative singular form cancrum. The term "cancrum oris" first appears in print in Observationes medicae de affectibus omissis (1649) by Arnoldus Boot as a translation of English "mouth canker" in a grammatical context that calls for an accusative singular, and so the form is ambiguous in this source as to the gender of the word.^[1] The hypothesis that the name cancrum oris originated in such a blunder is put forth by B. H. Coates (1826),^[2] who suggests the error first appeared in John Pearson's Principles of Surgery (1788, London, Chapter 13, Section 1 "Of the Canker of the Mouth", from page 262).^[3]

cancrum n (genitive cancrī); second declension

1. (medicine) canker^[4]
   • 1649, Arnold Boate, Observationes medicae de affectibus omissis , (page 26):

     quando epidemice haec labes saevit ob quas causas Anglicum vulgus eam Mouth Canker, aut Canker of the Mouth, id est Cancrum Oris appellat: quod nomen de aliis quoque ulcerosis ac malignis Oris affectibus usurpat.

Second-declension noun (neuter).

• cancrum ōris

• cancrum in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)