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tumor

noun

Simple meaning

An abnormal new mass of tissue that serves no purpose.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

toomer

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US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈtumɚ

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

noun

  1. oncologypathology

    An abnormal new mass of tissue that serves no purpose

  2. oncologypathology

    An abnormal growth; differential diagnosis includes abscess, metaplasia, and neoplasia.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
B1 · Intermediate (estimated)
Frequency
Common
Typical Use
General English

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

This meaning: An abnormal new mass of tissue that serves no purpose

Used this way, tumor is a specialist word with a clearly unfavourable pull. This is a clinical use: it belongs to medical description, where it is factual rather than emotive.

Emotional tone
Negative
Formality
Specialist/technical
Intensity
Gentle
How common
Specialized
Connotation
Serious and weighty
Usage feel
Clinical and detached

Where it naturally appears

  • Medicine/healthcare
  • Science
  • Technical/specialist writing

Usage note

In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

More ways to use tumor

  • “The doctor found a small benign tumor during the check-up.”

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

brain tumorprimary tumormalignant tumorbenign tumortumor celltumor necrosistumor growthtumor suppressor

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

  • tumor necrosis factornounCompound term

    A proinflammatory cytokine that is produced by white blood cells (monocytes and macrophages).

  • tumor suppressor genenounCompound term

    A suppressor gene that blocks unscheduled cell division.

  • tumor virusnounCompound term

    A cell-free filtrate held to be a virus responsible for a specific neoplasm.

  • brain tumornounCompound term

    A tumor in the brain.

  • ewing's tumornounCompound term

    Malignant tumor in bone marrow (usually in the pelvis or in long bones).

  • fibroid tumornounCompound term

    Benign tumor containing fibrous tissue (especially in the uterus).

Related Words

Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.

More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Synonyms

Sense: abnormal new mass of tissue that serves no purpose

neoplasm

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.