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”
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
And there’s this one, a pioneering one in California criminal law: a crime even without a corpse, the body of evidence — the corpus delicti.
From Los Angeles Times • Feb. 21, 2026
So, every time you have some sort of a crime that’s committed, you have to have the corpus delicti, which is a Latin term for the body of the crime.
From Slate • Jul. 24, 2019
Furthermore, there seemed to be no corpus delicti: in whodunits, corpus delicti means a corpse.
From Time Magazine Archive
In Worcester, undeterred by the impossibility of producing a corpus delicti, a district attorney sped a State detective to North Brookfield to investigate the 48-year-old death.
From Time Magazine Archive
But, O wonder upon wonder! the corpus delicti was in very deed transformed into the fairest blooming roses; the rolls had changed to white roses, the sausages to red, the omelets to yellow ones!
From Translations from the German (Vol 3 of 3) Tales by Musaeus, Tieck, Richter by Carlyle, Thomas
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.
