corpus

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English corpus,^[2][3] borrowed from Latin corpus (“body”), genitive corporis.^[4][5][6][7] Hoad suggests that in the 14th to 16th centuries it was perhaps partly a variant of corps, the ancestor of corpse.^[8] The Latin noun is from Proto-Indo-European *kʷrep- (“body, form, appearance”),^[5][2] and Klein takes it as probably cognate with Old English hrif (“womb, belly”) and Old High German href.^[6] Barnhart calls corpse a doublet of corpus,^[9] and the World Book Dictionary also names corps and corse as doublets.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The body of Christ, in oaths: the phrase by corpus bones is in Chaucer's Pardoner's Prologue, about 1386,^[4] about 1390 in Barnhart, who also cites goddes corpus.^[9] The OED thinks corpus bones perhaps confuses corpus Domini with Goddes bones.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The plain sense "the body of a person or animal" followed in the mid-15th century, in the York Mysteries;^[4][9][5] it is now used jokingly,^[7] and Scots kept it for a person's or an animal's body in the 19th century.^[11] Etymonline notes that both this sense and the later "collection of things" were already present in Latin.^[5] From 1694 anatomists used corpus for a distinct structure in the body, chiefly in Latin phrases such as corpus callosum (1706, "tough body") and corpus luteum (1788, "yellow body").^[4][5][7] The sense "a whole body of writings" is first recorded in Chambers's Cyclopædia, 1727 according to Barnhart and Etymonline, 1728 according to the OED.^[9][5][4] Lawyers used corpus delicti from 1705.^[4] From 1844 the word also meant the principal of a fund, as against the interest,^[4] a sense the Shorter Oxford marks as archaic.^[7] In the 20th century linguists took it for the body of written or spoken material that an analysis is based on (1956),^[4][7] and botanists for the inner mass of cells at a growing shoot tip (1939), a term first introduced in German by A. Schmidt in 1924.^[4]

Timeline

• c. 1386 – by corpus bones, in Chaucer.^[4][9]
• late 14th century – Corpus Christi, the feast of the Blessed Sacrament.^[5]
• c. 1440 – the body of a person or animal.^[4][9]
• 1694 – in anatomy, a distinct structure in the body.^[4]
• 1705 – corpus delicti.^[4]
• 1727 – a body of writings.^[9][5]
• 1844 – the principal of a fund, as opposed to income.^[4]
• 1939 – in botany, the inner cells of a shoot tip.^[4]
• 1956 – in linguistics, a body of texts used for analysis.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. A large collection of writings of one kind, by one author or on one subject: the corpus of medieval Welsh poetry.^[12][13][4]
2. In linguistics, a body of written or spoken texts on which a study of a language is based.^[12][4][7]
3. The main body or substance of something.^[12][3]
4. The principal or capital of a fund or estate, as distinct from the interest or income.^[13][3][4]
5. In anatomy, the main part of an organ or other structure of the body, or a distinct mass of tissue with its own function.^{[13][12][3][7]}
6. In botany, the inner layer or layers of cells in the growing tip of a shoot.^[12][4][7]
7. The body of a person or animal, especially a dead one; now humorous.^[3][7][4]

Word family

• corpus callosum
• corpus delicti
• corpus luteum
• corpus striatum
• habeas corpus

Related words

• corpse
• corps
• corporal
• corporeal
• corpulent
• corpuscle

Usage notes

The plural is corpora, or less often corpuses.^[7][12][3] The city of Corpus Christi in Texas is named after its bay, which the Spanish explorer Alonso Álvarez de Pineda named after the feast day on which he found it in 1519.^[5]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
3. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
10. ^ The World Book Dictionary (2015), Chicago: World Book
11. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
12. ^ a b c d e f Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
13. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin