cadaver
Americannoun
-
cadavers
plural
noun
Usage
What is a cadaver? A cadaver is a dead body, especially a dead human body. The word cadaver is sometimes used interchangeably with the word corpse, but cadaver is especially used in a scientific context to refer to a body that is the subject of scientific study or medical use, such as one that will be dissected. It’s sometimes used as a modifier (adjective) in phrases that involve cadavers. For example, cadaver tissue is tissue that has been harvested from a donor body. A cadaver dog is a dog that has been specially trained to track the scent of dead bodies in searches for missing persons. Example: The cadavers are carefully preserved before they are prepared for dissection.
Synonym Usage
See body.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of cadaver
1350–1400; Middle English < Latin cadāver dead body, corpse; akin to cadere to fall, perish ( see decay, chance)
Explanation
A cadaver is a dead human body used in scientific or medical research. If you are dead, you are a corpse, but if Dr. Frankenstein robs your grave so he can use your body for research, you become a cadaver. Umm... congratulations? Cadaver comes from the Latin verb, cadere, which means “to fall." Its English origins refer to soldiers who died in battle, i.e. the fallen. Dissection of a cadaver is a major rite of passage for medical school students––some have been known to run from the room and throw up — though most surprise themselves.
Vocabulary lists containing cadaver
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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.
See Examples For:
Sheriff’s cadaver dogs, deputies with shovels and a backhoe were seen at work.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 2, 2026
When the mummy was found in 1991, it was initially treated as a normal cadaver.
From Barron's ● Jun. 3, 2026
A third group of six cadaver donors provided additional skin samples to strengthen the control group.
From Science Daily ● Dec. 15, 2025
The Chobot-Collier team never speaks to the authorities, or any police at all, save for the handlers of a cadaver dog used in a search for Theresa’s body, an effort launched on the flimsiest lead.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 28, 2025
The new ant put down the cadaver vaguely and began dragging the other two in various directions.
From "The Once and Future King" by T. H. White
Cayabyab told AFP on Friday evening that the first transfer had been capped at 30 bodies due to the capacity of the patrol vessel transporting them and that additional cadavers remained on the ferry.
From Barron's ● Sep. 12, 2026
Much of early topographical anatomy – the careful mapping of structures in relation to one another – depended on cadavers obtained through grave robbery.
From Science Daily ● Jun. 21, 2026
Over the next century, more than 20 such disturbances broke out across the U.S.—in Baltimore, Cleveland, St. Louis and elsewhere—as demand for doctors, and cadavers, spiked in the quickly growing nation.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 5, 2026
These loose laws have turned the US into a global exporter of cadavers.
From BBC ● Aug. 30, 2025
Between meals, Don José sketched rather than dissected the cadavers and caught up on his sleep on a bench below a Gauguin and alongside several Van Goghs in the Prado.
From "How the García Girls Lost Their Accents" by Julia Alvarez
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
