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chancre (n.)

also chanker, "venereal ulcer, syphilitic sore," c. 1600, from French chancre (15c.), literally "cancer," from Latin cancer (see cancer).

Entries related to chancre

cancer (n.)
Old English cancer "spreading sore, malignant tumor" (also canceradl), from Latin cancer "a crab," later, "malignant tumor," from Greek karkinos, which, like the Modern English word, has three meanings: a crab, a tumor, and the zodiac constellation represented by a crab, from PIE *karkro-, reduplicated form of root *kar- "hard."

Greek physicians Hippocrates and Galen, among others, noted similarity of crabs to some tumors with swollen veins. The Old English word was displaced by French-influenced doublet canker but was reintroduced in the modern medical sense c. 1600. In reference to the zodiac sign from late Old English; meaning "person born under the zodiac sign of Cancer" is from 1894. The sun being in Cancer at the summer solstice, the constellation had association in Latin writers with the south and with summer heat. Cancer stick "cigarette" is from 1959.
chancroid (adj.)

"resembling a chancre," 1868, from chancre + -oid. Earlier as a noun, a kind of genital ulcer (1861).

*kar- 

also *ker-, Proto-Indo-European root meaning "hard."

It forms all or part of: -ard; Bernard; cancer; canker; carcinogen; carcinoma; careen; chancre; -cracy; Gerard; hard; hardly; hardy; Leonard; Richard; standard.

It is the hypothetical source of/evidence for its existence is provided by: Sanskrit karkatah "crab," karkarah "hard;" Greek kratos "strength," kratys "strong;" "hard;" Old English heard, German hart "solid and firm, not soft."

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Definitions of chancre from WordNet

chancre (n.)
a small hard painless nodule at the site of entry of a pathogen (as syphilis);
From wordnet.princeton.edu

Dictionary entries near chancre

chance

chancel

chancellery

chancellor

chancery

chancre

chancroid

chancy

chandelier

chandler

chandlery

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