wart
/wɔːt
/noun
1A small, hard, benign growth on the skin, caused by a virus.Benign skin growths include warts, moles, or corns, which are rarely serious problems....
- The skin cells in the warts releases thousands of viruses, so close skin-to-skin contact can pass on the infection.
- Even lesions with clinical changes often are proved to be benign tumors or warts.
Synonyms
growth, lump, swelling, protuberance, carbuncle, boil, blister, verruca, corn, tumour, excrescence
rare tumescence
1.1Any rounded excrescence on the skin of an animal or the surface of a plant: the toad possesses a dangerous poison in its large warts...
- The Chinese have a tradition of breaking open the seed of brucea javonica and taping directly over warts and excrescences to stimulate their dissolution.
- They have no noseleaf, but they do have small warts on their noses above their nostrils.
- The skin is often decorated with warts and filaments that look like tassels.
1.2An undesirable or disfiguring feature: few products are without their warts
1.3 informal An obnoxious or objectionable person: what a bunch of nauseating little warts you are!
Phrases
warts and all
Derivatives
warty
/ adjective (wartier, wartiest) ...- The rough, warty skin conceals a fruit of such exquisite sweetness and sensuality that eating and handling one should be X-rated.
- Toads can be distinguished from frogs by their heavier build and brown, warty skin with females being larger than males.
- He was referred to our service with warty skin nodules on his left foot and leg for about 18 months now.
Origin
Old English wearte, of Germanic origin; related to Dutch wrat and German Warze.
The Anglo-Saxons suffered from warts—the word is first recorded around ad 700, and we have an Old English charm for getting rid of them. The expression warts and all, meaning ‘including features or qualities that are not appealing or attractive’, dates back to the mid 19th century. The source of the phrase can be traced back to Horace Walpole's Anecdotes of Painting in England (1763), in which he recounts a request supposedly made by Oliver Cromwell to the portrait painter Peter Lely: ‘Remark all these roughnesses, pimples, warts, and everything as you see me; otherwise I will never pay a farthing for it.’