canker

But Hegseth is as popular in Congress as a canker sore on a first date.

From Salon ● Oct. 9, 2026

Smith and Hume did not agree on every economic proposition, but they independently condemned the canker of the public debt.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 21, 2026

Correction, April 22, 2026: This piece originally misstated that citrus canker is a viral infection.

From Slate ● Apr. 20, 2026

As humans, we are nothing if not fascinated by our own bodies, whether that’s picking a scab, prodding a canker sore or popping a pimple.

From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 21, 2024

I guess I developed some kind of canker sores in my intestines because of the Merrick’s, and filth leaked out into the rest of my body.

From "Landscape with Invisible Hand" by M.T. Anderson

The blight precipitated an insidious acid in the American chestnut trees, and gnawed grievous cankers into their woody trunks.

From Salon ● Dec. 18, 2023

There are multiple types of pathogens that can cause cankers, and pruning them out as you have been doing is the best solution.

From Seattle Times ● May 23, 2022

Fire blight, a bacterial disease that can cause weeping cankers on pear-tree trunks, generally responds to antibiotics, but the drugs can stop working if over-used.

From Nature ● Mar. 13, 2017

He was curled up in a ball in pain, with bloody diarrhoea, a fever, cankers in his mouth, a rash on his face and boils on his legs.

From BBC ● May 26, 2014

In 1904, a keeper at the Bronx Zoo in New York noticed that the zoo’s handsome chestnuts had become covered in small orange cankers of an unfamiliar type.

From "A Walk in the Woods" by Bill Bryson