ruumiin 'of the body' +‎ mato 'worm', from the belief that cancer is caused by a worm that eats the body from inside. This term appears in the Finnish translation of the Bible from the year 1776 (2. Tim 2:17), which was used until 1938. In 1938 translation the modern term syöpä is used. In the 1648 translation the corresponding term is Crapu, which is an obsolete spelling of rapu (“crab, crayfish”) and calqued on Latin cancer.