incorporeal
Americanadjective
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not corporeal or material; insubstantial.
- Synonyms:
- immaterial, spiritual, bodiless
-
of, relating to, or characteristic of nonmaterial beings.
-
Law. without material existence but existing in contemplation of law, as a franchise.
adjective
-
without material form, body, or substance
-
spiritual or metaphysical
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law having no material existence but existing by reason of its annexation of something material, such as an easement, touchline, copyright, etc
an incorporeal hereditament
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of incorporeal
1525–35; < Latin incorpore ( us ) + -al 1. See in- 3, corporeal
Explanation
Something that has no material form or physical substance can be described as incorporeal. If you believe in spirits or ghosts that can't be touched or seen but only felt, then you believe in the incorporeal. Incorporeal comes from a combination of the Latin root words in- meaning "not" and corpus meaning "body." Combined they form incorporeus, meaning "without body," which is precisely what something incorporeal is. A haunted house is plagued by incorporeal, or immaterial spirits. You don't see them, but they are there, rattling windows, slamming doors, scaring the living daylights out of you.
Vocabulary lists containing incorporeal
Paradise Lost
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"Wuthering Heights" by Emily Bronte, Chapters 21–26
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Legendborn
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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.
“It would mean that any criticism of the central government can be described as a terrorist act because the honor of India is its incorporeal property,” the court said in its bail order.
From Seattle Times • Nov. 24, 2023
Their physical bodies — and your own — get entangled with those pictorial references to bodily experience, bringing a ghostly, incorporeal picture home.
From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 21, 2022
They write: “A deity that rules communication is an incorporeal linguistic power. A modern conception of such might read: a force of language from outside of materiality.”
From The Verge • Nov. 1, 2021
The problem with this “soul,” for Alter, is its Christian connotations of an incorporeal and immortal being, the dualism of the soul apart from the body.
From New York Times • Dec. 20, 2018
In Weep it was she who was the ghost, and an unbound one, invisible, incorporeal, insubstantial as a murmur.
From "Strange the Dreamer" by Laini Taylor
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.
