canker

• If not for the fears that gnawed at me like a canker, it would have been a pleasant journey. —  Carey, Jaqueline - Kushiel's Dart orig
• Palestinian homes during the invasion of Gaza, the paper calls on Israel to root out what it calls the canker of brutality and ill-discipline from the military. —  CFR.org -
• They get sore mouths--canker the fakirs call it--and won't eat, and then, if you've got any investment in 'em you want to get it out mighty quick, for they are no orchids. —  Side Show Studies
• Our pastor was not what could be properly styled an old man, but it was thought that his grief, like a canker-worm, sapped the fountains of life, his bodily health became impaired, his vigor of mind departed, and, ere he had seen sixty years, death removed him from earth, to a home of happiness in Heaven. —  Stories and Sketches
• But the canker was at his heart. —  The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 Volume 23, Number 2

Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

Used in the Same Context