Definition

A canker is a plant disease characterized (in woody plants) by the death of cambium tissue and loss and/or malformation of bark, or (in non-woody plants) by the formation of sharply delineated, dry, necrotic, localized lesions on the stem; "canker" may also be used to refer to the lesion itself, particularly in woody plants.

Etymology. O.E. cancer, from L. cancer; influenced in M.E. by O.N.Fr. cancre. The word was the common one for "cancer" until c.1700.