Corpse Meaning
/kɔːps/Definition, CEFR level C1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
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Definition
nounA dead body, especially that of a human as opposed to an animal.
nounThe dead body of any animal with flesh; the dead body of a vertebrate; a carcass.
Sentence Examples
Hisao's face was as pale as that of a corpse.
This thing is not a bear. It is the corpse of a bear.
CEFR Practice Quiz
The detective examined the ____ discovered in the basement.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
Hisao's face was as pale as that of a ____.
Word Origin & History
From Middle English, from earlier corse, from Old French cors, from Latin corpus (“body”). Displaced native English likam and lich. The ⟨p⟩ was inserted due to the original Latin spelling. Doublet of corps and corpus, and distantly of riff (via Proto-Indo-European). The verb sense derives from the notion of being unable to control laughter while acting as dead body.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"I saw battle-corpses, myriads of them, / And the white skeletons of young men, I saw them, / I saw the debris and debris of all the slain soldiers of the war, […]"
— 1865, Walt Whitman, “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d”, in Sequel to Drum-Taps: When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d and other poems:
"Cantharidin, although readily decomposed by chemical agents, is so permanent in the body that it has been detected in the corpse of a cat eighty-four days after death."
— 1885, Alexander Wynter Blyth, Poisons, Their Effects and Detection: A Manual for the Use of Analytical Chemists and Experts, volume I, New York: William Wood and Co., page 430:
"Near Smeinogorsk an octagonal tumulus has been found containing the corpse of a horse near a rectangular one with a human corpse, both within stone circles."
— 1898, Friedrich Ratzel, The History of Mankind, volume III, London: Macmillan and Co., page 325:
"Nelson and I landed next to the half rotted corpse of a horse full of maggots."
— 2005, J. C. Arlington, A Red Horse Rode Out, West Conshohoken, PA: Infinity Publishing, page 91:
"The rest of the day and the week were spent blocking and learning the lines. The only drama was the predictable one of being ticked off for corpsing. Rupert was quite as bad as me when it came to giggling and the tea-party scene which took place between Rupert, David Parfitt, Piers Flint-Shipman and I, was too much."
— 1989, Kenneth Branagh, Beginning, London: Chatto & Windus, →ISBN, page 94:
Explore More C1 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
The detective examined the ____ discovered in the basement.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
Hisao's face was as pale as that of a ____.