癌症
yánzhèng · HSK 7
cancer
🦀 illness radical + three mouths stacked on a mountain = growths piling up
癌 puts 品 (three mouths) atop 山 (mountain) under 疒 (illness): masses multiplying like rocky peaks. 症 means condition, so 癌症 is the cancer condition.
癌 — sickness radical 疒 + 嵒 (rocks/cliff)
癌 combines the sickness radical 疒 with 嵒, which depicts piled rocks or a rocky cliff. The rocks suggest hard, lumpy growths, fitting the meaning 'cancer' (hard tumors). It is a relatively modern coinage, adopted in the 19th–20th century to translate the Western medical concept.