cancer-likeadv.adj.

1643 J. Howell Parables 6 All things went Cancer-like retrograde, because the Sunne detained his beames and irradiations from them.

1646 T. Fuller Andronicus sig. I7 Aske mee not why Hells Alphabet must be read backward, let Satan give an account of his owne Couz'nage; whether out of an apish imitation of the Hebrew, which is read retrograde; or, because that ugly filthy Serpent,..Crawls Cancer-like.

1750 Gentleman's Diary 44 Yet after all, think it not strange to hear, That Cancer like, I always backward steer.

1780 A. Mackenzie Frequent Communion 123 Refined irreligion, pleasing and insinuating illusions, and deep hypocrisy, which, cancer-like, widely diffuse themselves, are more formidable obstacles to virtue, than racks and tortures.

1828 W. F. P. Napier Hist. War Penins. I. 296 They..continued to nourish the disorders that, cancer-like, were destroying the common cause.

1873 J. Stirling Stewardship Life ix. 227 When it becomes a ruling passion it gnaws, cancer-like, through the sinews of life and power.

1938 S. Atlantic Q. 37 256 The movement on foot in Viscaya and Catalonia is but a symptom of a profound ailment, spreading cancer-like, bringing about the disintegration of Spain.

1998 D. Baldacci Simple Truth i. 5 He had convinced himself over the years that such evil has been lurking, cancerlike, within him.

1795 Med. Commentaries for 1794 Decade 2nd 9 257 A cancer-like case of the uterus.

1806 Philadelphia Med. & Physical Jrnl. Suppl. 282 I greatly incline to the belief, that some of the mammalia, besides man, are subject to cancerous or cancer-like affections.

1845 E. Stone Chrons. Fashion II. 294 Those swarms from the land of Cockaigne, daily and weekly disgorged on its Steyne from the cancer-like arms of the railroads.

1853 Lancet 17 Dec. 585/1 Any growth, no matter what its structure, is considered as a cancer, or as cancer-like, provided that it tends to destroy life in the same manner in which cancer does.

1883 Harper's Mag. July 201/2 The remedy for the cancer-like evil of Nihilism is not easy to discover.

1925 H. J. Laski Gram. of Politics vi. 238 For hate is of all qualities the most cancer-like to its possesser.

1949 H. W. C. Vines Green's Man. Pathol. (ed. 17) xxxvi. 994 It was seen to consist of a spindle-cell stroma whose interstices contained cancer-like cells showing colloid degeneration.

1967 New Scientist 4 May 276/3 Molecules..are produced in the blood of patients suffering from a cancer-like proliferation of cells in the bone marrow and bloodstream.

2005 Cancer Lett. 230 4/2 Transgenic expression of active MEK1 in a variety of tissues..promotes cancer-like effects by increasing proliferation and inhibiting differentiation.