corpse
Americannoun
-
corpses
plural
-
a dead body, usually of a human being.
- Synonyms:
- cadaver
-
something no longer useful or viable.
rusting corpses of old cars.
-
Obsolete. a human or animal body, whether alive or dead.
noun
verb
Synonym Usage
See body.
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of corpse
First recorded in 1225–75; Middle English corps; originally spelling variant of cors ( see corse) but the p is now sounded
Explanation
Another name for a dead body is corpse. You might hear the word on TV crime shows, but a corpse doesn't have to be a crime victim, just any lifeless body. The words corpse and "corps" are often confused, and with good reason — both came from the Latin word corpus, meaning "body," and up until the 19th Century, both referred to a dead person. Around that time, the word with the "e" at the end was established as the word for a person's remains, while the other spelling was relegated to a "body" of people working together or in a military division, and very much alive!
Vocabulary lists containing corpse
Body Language: Corp ("Body")
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The Westing Game
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Beowulf vocabulary
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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:
There, at a tombstone whose name is illegible, the inspector and his crew find a corpse in a tweed suit.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 7, 2026
Three men removed the deceased from a body bag, which they tossed aside, before returning the corpse to the coffin.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 8, 2026
A crowd then gathered around the corpse, singing a dirge in a local Swahili dialect.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 8, 2026
A rare corpse flower, known for its massive size and foul stench, will bloom for just 24 to 48 hours.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 14, 2026
Houses pass slowly with dead bushes and the frozen corpse of snow.
From "Landscape with Invisible Hand" by M.T. Anderson
The army has set up an improvised morgue in Toledo because the city's existing facility could not receive all the corpses.
From Barron's ● Oct. 30, 2026
With many corpses badly disfigured, volunteers said several families had claimed the same body.
From Barron's ● Aug. 30, 2026
Sometimes known as "Doctor Death", he became famous for developing a technique called plastination, by which fluids and fatty tissue in corpses are replaced by rubber and polymers.
From BBC ● Jul. 27, 2026
In some cases, relatives flee homes when a family member dies, without informing authorities, leaving highly infectious corpses unattended for days.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 16, 2026
During his own medical education Holmes had seen firsthand how desperate schools were to acquire corpses, whether freshly dead or skeletonized.
From "The Devil in the White City" by Erik Larson
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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.
