corpus delicti
Americannoun
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the basic element or elements of a crime, as, in murder, the death of the murdered person; the body of facts or evidence showing that a crime has been committed.
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the object, as the body of a murdered person, upon which a crime has been committed and that serves as evidence proving that the crime was committed.
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of corpus delicti
1825–35; < New Latin: “body of the offense”
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
