The corpus record — Latin

cancer

a crab

Generated live from the audited Latin corpus — every figure on this page is a database query, not prose from memory.

Where it lives

De Institutione Viri Boni, Appendix Vergiliana 1 · 54.35/10k
Precationes 1 · 21.6/10k
Eclogarum Liber 5 · 18.26/10k
Hercules Oetaeus 4 · 3.55/10k
De Medicina 35 · 3.41/10k
Naturalis Historia 67 · 1.69/10k
Thyestes 1 · 1.59/10k
Pharsalia 8 · 1.57/10k
De Architectura 9 · 1.56/10k
Phaedra 1 · 1.41/10k
Apotheosis 1 · 1.35/10k
Satyricon 4 · 1.31/10k

Densest 12 of 30 attested works shown, by occurrences per 10,000 attested tokens.

What it meant

1. cancer — Lewis & Short

cancer, cri (

I gen. canceris, Lucr. 5, 616; Arn. 1, p. 30; acc. plur. canceres, Cato, R. R. 157, 3), m. (neutr. Claudius, Quadrig. ap. Prisc. p. 697 P.; Scrib. Comp. 206 and 240) [cf. karki/nos; root kar-, to be hard; whence ka/ruon, cornu], a crab, a river-crab, sea-crab.

I Lit., Plin. 9, 31, 51, § 97 sq.; 19, 10, 58, § 180; Pall. 1, 35, 7; Ov. M. 15, 369; Plaut. Ps. 4, 1, 45; Verg. G. 4, 48; Col. 9, 5, 6: cancer femina, Plin. 32, 10, 46, § 134; Pall. 1, 35, 7.—*

B Meton., hands that cling fast like the claws of crabs: Orci cancri, App. M. 6, p. 176, 26.—

II As nom. propr., the Crab, the sign of the zodiac in which the sun is found at the time of the summer solstice, Lucr. 5, 616; Ov. M. 2, 83; 10, 127; id. F. 6, 727; Cic. N. D. 2, 43, 110; Luc. 10, 259; cf. Hyg. Astr. 2, 23; Macr. S. 1, 17 fin.; acc. to the fable, as an animal hostile to Hercules in the contest with the Lernœan hydra; cf. Hyg. l. l. Hence, Lernaeus, Col. 10, 313.—

B Poet. for the region of the south, the south, Ov. M. 4, 625.—

C To designate great or violent heat, Ov. M. 10, 127.—

III In medicine, a crawling, eating, suppurating ulcer, malignant tumor, a cancer, Cels. 5, 26, 31; 6, 18, 3: malum immedicabile cancer, Ov. M. 2, 825; Cato, R. R. 157, 3; Claud. Quadrig. ap. Prisc. p. 697 P

2. cancer — Lewis & Short

cancer, cri, m.root kar-, to bend, twist; whence corona, circus,

I a lattice, the radical form of cancelli, q. v., Paul. ex Fest. p. 46; cf.: inter Orci cancros, App. M. 6, p. 176, 25.

In the wild

cancris Pliny the Elder, Naturalis Historia 11.48.p1
cancrum Ovid, Metamorphoses 2.83
cancri Vitruvius, De Architectura 9.8.14
Cancri Ammianus Marcellinus, Res Gestae 22.15.12
Cancer Cicero, de Natura Deorum 2.110
Cancri Silius Italicus, Punica 15.50

6 of 166 attestations shown.

Where it came from

Ernout-Meillet, Dictionnaire etymologique de la langue latine Treated in Ernout-Meillet, Dictionnaire etymologique de la langue latine s.v. cancer (scan p. 115; entry #1636).

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Latin text and lemmatization derived from the Perseus Digital Library (canonical-latinLit), CC BY-SA 4.0. Lewis & Short (public domain) via Perseus. This derived data is shared under the same CC BY-SA 4.0 license.