CORPSE • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Corpse

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/kɔrps/ Listen

noun

Corpse n.

A human body in general, whether living or dead; sometimes contemptuously. (Obs.) Note: Formerly written (after the French form) corps. See Corps, n., 1.

The dead body of a human being; used also Fig. "He touched the dead corpse of Public Credit, and it sprung upon its feet."

Corpse candle.

(a)

A thick candle formerly used at a lich wake, or the customary watching with a corpse on the night before its interment.

(b)

A luminous appearance, resembling the flame of a candle, sometimes seen in churchyards and other damp places, superstitiously regarded as portending death.

Corpse gate, the gate of a burial place through which the dead are carried, often having a covered porch; called also lich gate.

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Etymology of 'Corpse'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Corpse" Quotes from Famous Books

... hear it nor see it agin! I never shall furgit how them men all looked a-viewin' the traveler's body what I fund dead in the road; they looked like jes' so many solemn, peekin', heejus black buzzards crowdin' aroun' the corpse; then a-noddin' an' a-whisperin' tergether, an' a-findin' of a verdic' ez they called it. They fund nuthin' at all. 'T war me ez done the findin'. I fund the man dead in the road. An' I ain't a-goin' ter be a witness no mo'. Nex' time the law wants me fur a witness I'll ...

— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock

... of our Lord's words, how He smooths away the grimness of death. I do not claim for Him anything like a monopoly of that most obvious and natural symbolism which regards death as a sleep. It must have occurred to all who ever looked upon a corpse. But I do claim that when He used the metaphor, and by His use of it modified the whole conception of death in the thoughts of His disciples, He put altogether different ideas into it from that which ...

— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... on the outskirts of the crowd had not caught my ear. They had just come out from seeing the sight in the Morgue, and the account they were giving of the dead body to their neighbours described it as the corpse of a man—a man of immense size, with a strange mark on ...

— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins

... eyes off the Moon, they could not help noticing that they were still attended outside by the spectre of Satellite's corpse and by the other refuse of the Projectile. An occasional melancholy howl also attested Diana's recognition of her companion's unhappy fate. The travellers saw with surprise that these waifs still seemed perfectly motionless in space, and kept their respective distances apart as mathematically ...

— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne

... corpse gaunt jackals rend and shake, And ply their horrid task; One half still hangs impaled upon the stake, Loud laughter's ...

— The Little Clay Cart - Mrcchakatika • (Attributed To) King Shudraka

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