Meaning & use
tumorous
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Meaning
adjectivebefore a nounmedical
Of, relating to or resembling a tumor, an abnormal lump of cells in the body.
Grammar: Usually comes before a noun: tumorous tissue, a tumorous growth.
Patterns
- tumorous tissue
- tumorous growth
The surgeon removed the tumorous tissue from the patient's liver.
A scan showed a tumorous growth near the spine.
Tumorous cells divide faster than normal ones.
Common combinations
- tumorous growth
- The scan revealed a tumorous growth in the lung.
- tumorous tissue
- Surgeons cut out the tumorous tissue.
- tumorous cells
- The drug targets tumorous cells.
- tumorous lump
- She found a small tumorous lump and called her doctor.
Synonyms and how they differ
- cancerous
- Cancerous means the growth is malignant, while tumorous only says it is a tumor, which may be harmless.
- malignant
- Malignant is the medical term for a harmful growth that spreads, which is narrower than tumorous.
- neoplastic
- Neoplastic is the technical adjective for new abnormal growth, and is used in formal medicine.
- benign
- Benign means harmless and is a type of tumorous growth, not a synonym.
Opposites
Word family
- tumor noun
- an abnormal mass of cells
- tumour noun
- British spelling of tumor
- tumorigenic adjective
- able to cause tumors
- tumorigenesis noun
- the process by which tumors form
Commonly confused: tumorous or cancerous?
tumorous vs cancerous
Not every tumorous growth is cancerous, since many tumors are benign.
Practice
The biopsy showed that the lump was ___, though doctors were not yet sure it was cancer.
Choose one answer.
Tumorous describes something that is a tumor, without saying it is cancer. The other words are real words with different meanings.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “tumorous”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.