2006-10-22 16:53:49 · 16 answers · asked by ortheother 1 in Entertainment & Music ➔ Horoscopes
Or perhaps I should be asking if there is any relation between the two?:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Cancer_vs_crab.jpg
2006-10-22 16:54:20 · update #1
Carcinos is Latin for "crab". Hippocrates, a greek physician called it that because malignant tumours resemble a crab.
2006-10-22 17:02:00 · answer #1 · answered by charlie_boy5582 2 · 3⤊ 0⤋
Early Greeks felt that the stars in the sky has some affect over their daily lives and so astrology was born. Think of it as a precursor to our modern day astronomy. The zodiac sign of Cancer was named after the Tropic of Cancer (the latitude of the summer solstice (in the northern hemisphere) because the constellation corresponding to this position in the sky was Cancer when the constellations were named nearly 2000 years ago. The Greeks had no modern day understanding of cancer.
2006-10-23 15:39:08 · answer #2 · answered by Ava 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Cancer is the Latin word for a Crab. The astrological sign is in the shape of a crab and that is why it is so named. If one operates on a malignant tumour one often finds a central volume with small extensions moving out from the core. This was thought to have the appearance of a crab with the legs representing the extensions. Another word for a cancer is a carcinoma (specifically, this is a cancer of a lining), which derives from the Greek word for ... a crab.
2016-03-28 04:36:48 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
The constellation is not named after the disease. It's named after the crab. Cancer means "crab" in Latin. The disease was called cancer because it was so horrible, like being eaten up by a crab. See the link below for more info on the word's origin.
2006-10-22 17:05:14 · answer #4 · answered by yahoohoo 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Actually there is no relationship between the two I think it is the meaning of Greek mythology because I heard that the ancient Greeks made this English horoscope and as you know Greeks don't know English it is only when Greeks ventured out when the English converted the Greek word cranse eg(cran/se) so they converted it to cancer.
2006-10-22 23:16:23 · answer #5 · answered by oceanaoftheocean 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I doubt that the astrology thing - Cancer - has anything to do with the disease. Astrology came about centuries ago so it had 1st dibs on the word.
2006-10-22 16:58:08 · answer #6 · answered by julie 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I think cancer was like a foreign word for a star formation, the crab, long before our "highly paid" underskilled medical professionals made the word shorter in English to describe traits of a secretive, and not very clear condition they couldn't understand!!!!!
2006-10-22 21:38:51 · answer #7 · answered by helenlane_kia 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The sign Cancer is from the crab not the disease.
2006-10-23 08:58:50 · answer #8 · answered by Aimee 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
welll... I believe astrology came before Cancer became a well-known disease, so the disease was probably named after the astrological disease somehow.
2006-10-22 16:55:14 · answer #9 · answered by Ana L 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋
It was the disease that was named after the stars, not the other way round.
2006-10-22 16:56:22 · answer #10 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋