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cancrine (KAN-krin) - adj., of, relating to, or resembling a crab.
There's also an obsolete meaning derived from this sense, but was the first used in English, of something that is the same forwards and backwards -- now replaced by palindromic. Well, sort of derived, since the relevant quality of crabs is that they walk sideways -- maybe the idea is that it's the same sort of sideways in either direction. Borrowed around 1750 from Latin, where it had the palindromic sense especially with regard to verse, from cancer, crab.
---L.
There's also an obsolete meaning derived from this sense, but was the first used in English, of something that is the same forwards and backwards -- now replaced by palindromic. Well, sort of derived, since the relevant quality of crabs is that they walk sideways -- maybe the idea is that it's the same sort of sideways in either direction. Borrowed around 1750 from Latin, where it had the palindromic sense especially with regard to verse, from cancer, crab.
---L.
