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
Walk Two Moons
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Persepolis
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The Hot Zone
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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:
When the mummy was found in 1991, it was initially treated as a normal cadaver.
From Barron's ● Jun. 3, 2026
Sheriff’s deputies even used ground-penetrating radar and cadaver dogs to search the property of his father, Ruben Flores, in Arroyo Grande in 2021.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 9, 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
“And they’ve got to be real careful lifting a cadaver out of a coffin, to keep it from coming apart.”
From "The Teacher’s Funeral" by Richard Peck
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
However, some of this research -- particularly one claiming to have found a plastic spoon's worth of microplastic in the brains of cadavers -- has recently come under stinging criticism from scientists.
From Barron's ● Jan. 27, 2026
When Shelley wrote “Frankenstein,” Edinburgh had gained infamy as a site of murders and grave robberies that helped fuel a thriving trade in cadavers centered on the city’s laboratories and research hospitals.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 24, 2025
Kevin Lowbrera, who works for one of the big "body broking" companies, says its accreditation by the American Association of Tissue Banks means it has to follow guidelines determining how cadavers are treated and stored.
From BBC ● Aug. 30, 2025
Mudgett foresaw no difficulty in acquiring the cadavers, although in fact a national shortage of corpses for medical education had by then driven doctors to raid graveyards for the freshly dead.
From "The Devil in the White City" by Erik Larson
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.
