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corporal

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There are three corporals in English: the altar cloth, the adjective meaning "bodily" and the military rank.[1] The first two come from the same Latin adjective, and the third may as well.[1]

Pronunciation

  • /ˈkoɹ.pɚ.əl/, /ˈkoɹ.pɹəl/[2]
  • UK: /ˈkɔːp(ə)ɹəl/[2]

corporal1 altar cloth

Etymology

The altar cloth is borrowed from Medieval Latin corporāle, in full corporāle pallium or corporālis palla,[3][4][5][6][7] the neuter of Latin corporālis (“bodily, of the body”) used as a noun,[8][4][1] from corpus (“body”).[3][8][1] It was named from the doctrine that the consecrated bread is, or represents, the body of Christ.[1][8][5] The word may also have come through Old French corporal, which the Anglo-Norman Dictionary records both for a eucharistic vestment and for the linen cloth of the mass;[8][9][10][11] a by-form Middle English corporas is also found.[9][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

An ancient eucharistic vestment, in the Old English Canons of Edgar; this sense was last recorded in 1660.[3][4]

Semantic evolution

The sense of the cloth on which the consecrated bread and wine are placed during mass, and with which they are covered, is recorded from 1381, in a gild record listing two corporalles.[3][9][12] The MED also has the corporal case, in which the cloth was kept (1449).[9] The Shorter Oxford notes that the cloth is now square.[4]

Timeline

  • Old English – an ancient eucharistic vestment (obsolete by 1660).[3][4]
  • 1381 – the communion cloth.[3][9]
  • 1449 – corporal case, the case for the cloth.[9]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A linen cloth on which the consecrated bread and wine are placed during the Eucharist, or with which they are covered; a communion cloth.[8][3][5][6]

corporal2 bodily

Etymology

The adjective is inherited from Middle English corporal, also corporel,[9][8] borrowed from Old French corporal (“of the body, physical, strong”), later corporel, now French corporel,[3][12][4][6] recorded in Anglo-Norman from about 1165–80,[11] and partly directly from Latin corporālis (“of the body”),[12][9][5] formed from corpus (“body”) and the suffix -ālis.[3][13] Barnhart calls the Old French word a learned borrowing from Latin.[14] The AHD and Etymonline trace corpus to Proto-Indo-European *kwrep- (“body, form, appearance”).[15][12]

Earliest recorded meaning

Barnhart and Etymonline find it first about 1390, as corporel, in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, meaning "material, physical; secular, temporal"; the sense "of the body" follows before 1400 in Chaucer's translation of the Roman de la Rose.[14][12] The Romaunt of the Rose is also the OED's and the MED's first quotation.[3][9]

Semantic evolution

Merriam-Webster's “Book of Word Histories” notes two chief senses, "relating to the body" and the perhaps slightly earlier "relating to the physical or material world"; the latter has been taken over by corporeal, from another Latin adjective, corporeus.[1] Several senses died out: "having a body" (1471–1645), "large of body" (about 1475–1630) and "material, physical" (about 1520–1715).[3] The phrases lasted: the corporal oath, an oath confirmed by touching a sacred object, is already in the MED and in the OED from 1534;[3][9] corporal punishment, at first including death, mutilation, branding and the pillory as opposed to a fine, from 1581;[3][12] and the seven corporal works of mercy from about 1600.[3] Johnson (1755) defined the word as "relating to the body; belonging to the body".[16]

Timeline

  • c. 1390 – corporel, material, secular, in Chaucer.[14][12]
  • c. 1400 – of the human body, bodily.[3][12]
  • 1471 – having a body (obsolete by 1645).[3]
  • c. 1475 – large of body (obsolete by 1630).[3]
  • 1534 – corporal oath.[3]
  • 1581 – corporal punishment.[3][12]
  • c. 1600 – corporal works of mercy.[3]
  • 1651 – personal, in Hobbes.[3]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. Of, relating to or affecting the body; bodily, physical: corporal punishment.[5][8][3]
  2. Of the body as distinct from the head and limbs.[8]
  3. (obsolete) Having a body; material, corporeal.[5][8][3]

Word family

  • corporality
  • corporally
  • corporal punishment

corporal3 military rank

Etymology

The military rank is borrowed from Middle French corporal,[3][8][14][1] a 16th-century variant of caporal, from Italian caporale,[3][8][14][12][17] which most dictionaries derive from capo (“head, chief”), from Latin caput (“head”),[8][14][12][17][15] with the ending perhaps modelled on pairs such as tempo and temporale.[8] The “-or-” of the French form is then put down to the influence of corps (“body”), the corporal being in charge of a body of troops.[8][14][12][17][6] The OED takes the opposite view: the form with “-or-” is old, since Du Cange quotes a letter of 1405 in which the Venetians call a captain corporalis, so it derives the word from corpo and Latin corpus, a body of troops, with later influence from capo;[3][4][18] Weekley also derives it from corpus.[7] Merriam-Webster's “Book of Word Histories” sets out both theories and finds it virtually impossible to decide between them.[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

A non-commissioned officer ranking below a sergeant: 1579, in L. and T. Digges's Stratioticos.[3][14][8]

Semantic evolution

In the 16th and 17th centuries a corporal of the field was a superior officer who assisted the sergeant-major (1591–1633).[3] At sea the corporal was a petty officer who taught the sailors the use of small arms (1626).[3] In the United States the word has also named a freshwater fish, the fallfish (1888), and the head man of a cattle party (1920),[3] and Merriam-Webster records an assistant to a precinct police sergeant.[8]

Timeline

  • 1579 – a non-commissioned officer below a sergeant.[3][14][8]
  • 1591 – corporal of the field (obsolete by 1633).[3]
  • 1626 – a ship's petty officer.[3]
  • 1888 – United States, the fallfish.[3]
  • 1920 – United States, the head man of a cattle party.[3]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A non-commissioned officer ranking below a sergeant and above a private first class in an army, or above a lance corporal in the Marines.[8][3][5]
  2. (United States) The fallfish, a North American freshwater fish.[8][3]
  3. (United States) An assistant to a police sergeant in a precinct.[8]

Word family

  • lance corporal
  • corporal's guard

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster's Book of Word Histories, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  2. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  4. ^ a b c d e f g Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  5. ^ a b c d e f g Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  6. ^ a b c d Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  7. ^ a b c Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  9. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
  10. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  11. ^ a b Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
  12. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  13. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  14. ^ a b c d e f g h i Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  15. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  16. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  17. ^ a b c Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
  18. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press