cankery

From canker +‎ -y.

cankery (comparative more cankery, superlative most cankery)

1. Full of canker (plant disease); diseased and decaying.
   • 1804 September, Edwards, Earl of Dundonald, “Critical Catalogue: A Treatise shewing the intimate Connection that subsists between Agriculture and Chemistry”, in Agricultural Magazine, volume 11, page 217:

     Mix fresh cow-dung with urine and soap-suds, and with this mixture, was over the sems and branches of the trees, as a white-washer would wash the ceiling or walls of a room; taking care to cut off all the cankery parts , and to scrape off all the moss , before you lay the mixture on. In the course of the Spring or Summer you will fee a fine new bark coming on. When the old bark is cankery, you must pare is off with a draw-knife, or such a long knife as I have had made on purpose, especially for wall-trees; where the draw-knife cannot be applied next the wall.

   • 1830, John Baxter, The Library of Agricultural and Horticultural Knowledge, page 147:

     In the pruning of standards give only occasional pruning, to reform or remove any casual irregularity from cross-placed or very crowded branches; and take away all cankery and decayed wood .

   • 1902, William Forsyth, A Treatise on the Culture and Management of Fruit-trees, page 346:

     The part of the trunk below a shews the cankery state of the bark; which rough cankery bark must always be pared off, otherwise it will infect the new .

2. Marked by cankers; ulcerous.
   • 1833, "Cincinnatus", “Communications”, in Healthside, volume 1, page 268:

     It is powerfully effecacious in the cleansing and arresting the progress of cankery affections of every kind, and removing all local foulness from any part .

   • 1888, Church Records, Dedham Massachusetts, edited by Don Gleason Hill, Record of Baptisms, Marriages and Deaths, and Admissions to the Church and Dismissals therefrom,, page 102:

     A Child of Mr Joshua Fales, aged 6 1/2 years of a cankery Disorder .

   • 1974, Thomas Hersey, The Midwife's Practical Directory, page 281:

     These cankery complaints require a wash made of the medicine recommended by Dr. Thomson to remove canker .

   • 2000, Ian McCormick, Sexual Outcasts 1750-1850: Onanism, page 171:

     The next from of Chancre we have to notice is that denominated malignant; which is an ulcer having a circumjacent scarlet hue, cankery and putrid .

3. Rusty; corroded.
   • 1873, Isaac W. Ambler, William P. Freeman, "Truth is Stranger Than Fiction".: The Life of Sergeant I.W. Ambler, page 34:

     The water in this pit varied from two inches to a foot in depth, and in some places it had stood so many years that it was cankery, or corroded, and working in it barefooted, it would eat the skin off between my toes, making it very painful.

   • 1903, Richard Watson Dixon, History of the Church of England: Mary. A.D. 1553-1558, page 538:

     The third is of St. James, who saith to covetous rich men after this manner: 'Weep and howl, ye rich men, for the misery that shall come upon you: your riches do rot, your clothes be motheated, your gold and silver wax cankery and rusty, and their rust shall bear witness against you, and consume you like fire: you make a hoard and treasure of God's indignation at the last day."

   • 2007, Bill Griffiths, Pitmatic: The Talk of the North East Coalfield, page 82:

     cankery water — "impure, poisonous water, red in colour" ( Wade , South Moor , 1966 )

4. Corrosive.
   • 1919, Kate Langley Bosher, His Friend, Miss McFarlane, page 22:

     And awful things happen to people who break their promises, things that make their insides turn green and cankery . ·

   • 1955, Delight Youngs, The Gladesman, page 216:

     But in the back o' his head the devil would prod an' the cankery cravin ' would eat deeper.

5. (of taste) Metallic or bitter.
   • 1842, John Wilson, “Ulcer Sympptoms Affecting An Entire Family and Terminating in Death”, in The Chemist, volume 3, page 190:

     Lastly, there was the 'cankery' taste of the mouth; the 'metallic' taste of the boy; the watery state of the mouth and lips in each; the teasing, hacking, dry cough, common to all, and affecting the children, particularly towards the last.

   • 1870, John Graham, Summing Up of John Graham, Esq., to the Jury, on the Part of the Defence, on the Trial of Daniel MacFarland, page 10:

     He came from Sea in the Year 1727, or the Beginning of the Year 1728, after which he made a Visit or two to his Friends in Surry in one of which, his mother having prepar'd a Pot of Sage Tea for her own drinking; but the Father, unhappily for him (tho' he had hardly ever been known to drink Tea) took a large Draught of it, and the Moment after he had so done declar'd he was poison'd , the Taste thereof being nafty and cankery, and worse than any Mineral Water, or Water wherein old Iron had been steep'd for some Time;

   • 1912, Samuel Otway Lewis Potter, Therapeutics, Materia Medica, and Pharmacy, page 847:

     Mercury or Podophyllin, as purgative for cankery taste unconnected with alcoholism;

6. Surly; cantankerous.
   • 1822, John Galt, Sir Andrew Wylie, of that ilk:

     Every body kens, Miss Mizy, that thou's a cankery creature , and that had thou no been sae, I might hae been quit o' thee lang syne; but nae fool cast up that would be fashed wi' thee.

   • 1865, Anthony Trollope, Can you forgive her?:

     "He was always one of them cankery chiels as never have a kindly word for man nor beast , " said the landlord .

   • 1870, The Saint Pauls Magazine, volume 6, page 151:

     They're a cankery independent sort of chaps, are bootmakers .

   • 1891, Clarence T. Atkinson, “Happiness as a Hygienic Factor”, in The Annals of Hygiene, volume 6, page 342:

     The horrible specter of unhappy and cankery depression has fallen before the angel of peace and good cheer.

7. Characteristic of canker (disease of a horse's foot, characterized by separation of the horny portion and the development of fungoid growths)
   • 1936, Walter Savage Landor, Thomas Earle Welby, Stephen Wheeler, The Complete Works of Walter Savage Landor, page 53:

     Pares from their feet the cankery rot.