Noun

(en noun)

(medicine, oncology, disease) A disease in which the cells of a tissue undergo uncontrolled (and often rapid) proliferation.

* {{quote-book, year=2006, author=(Edwin Black)

, title=Internal Combustion , chapter=1 citation , passage=If successful, Edison and Ford—in 1914—would move society away from the

* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-22, volume=407, issue=8841, page=76, magazine=(The Economist)

, title= Snakes and ladders , passage=Risk is everywhere. From tabloid headlines insisting that coffee causes cancer (yesterday, of course, it cured it) to stern government warnings about alcohol and driving, the world is teeming with goblins. For each one there is a frighteningly precise measurement of just how likely it is to jump from the shadows and get you.}}

(figuratively) Something which spreads within something else, damaging the latter.

{{quote-book, year=1999, author=Bruce Clifford Ross-Larson, title=Effective Writing, page=134 citation

, passage=Sierra Leone's post-dictator problems are almost absurd in their breadth. It once exported rice; now it can't feed itself. The life span of the average citizen is 39, the shortest in Africa. Unemployment stands at 87 percent and tuberculosis is spreading out of control. Corruption, brazen and ubiquitous, is a cancer on the economy.}}

Noun

(women)

An adult female human.

* Bible, (w) 2:22:

And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman .

* (John Ledyard) (1751-1789)

I have observed among all nations that the women ornament themselves more than the men

* 1887 , Helen Campbell, Prisoners of poverty: their trades and their lives , p.120:

But this woman' is a nice German ' woman that fell on the ice and sprained her ankle last winter, and we saw to her well as we could till she got better.

(lb) All females collectively; womankind.

*

*:“[…] it is not fair of you to bring against mankind double weapons ! Dangerous enough you are as woman alone, without bringing to your aid those gifts of mind suited to problems which men have been accustomed to arrogate to themselves.”

* 1997 , Bob Grant, Let's Be Heard , p.42:

For if modern woman is so intent on keeping her surname alive, why not demand it be passed along to her children?

* 2011 , Eileen Gray and the Design of Sapphic Modernity: Staying In , p.109:

Unsurprisingly, if modern man is a sort of camera, modern woman is a picture.

A wife (or sometimes a or girlfriend).

* 1914 , , Study of Thomas Hardy and Other Essays , chapter 7: "Of Being and Not-Being":

And then, when he lies with his woman , the man may concurrently be with God, and so get increase of his soul.

A female who is extremely fond of or devoted to a specified type of thing.

* 2004 , Hyveth Williams, Secrets of a Happy Heart: A Fresh Look at the Sermon on the Mount , p.70:

Perhaps my problem is that I am a cat woman . I can't imagine any finicky feline (and they all are that at one time or another) slobbering over anyone, even a beloved owner, the way a dog does.

A female attendant or servant.

* (William Shakespeare) (c.1564–1616)

By her woman I sent your message.