Etymologically
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corporeus

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [kɔrˈpɔ.re.ʊs][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [korˈpɔː.re.us][1]

Forms

corporeus (feminine corporea, neuter corporeum); first/second-declension adjective[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin corpus (“body”) + -eus.[2][3][4] De Vaan traces corpus to Proto-Italic *korp-os- and Proto-Indo-European *ḱrp-os- (“body”), with cognates in Avestan kəhrp- (“figure, body”) and Old English hrif (“belly, womb”).[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLL finds it first in Varro, Cicero and Lucretius;[3] Varro's Menippean Satires have the soul easily leaving its bodily husk.[2]

Semantic evolution

It means having a body, corporeal or material: Cicero's Timaeus has corporeum et aspectābile itemque tractābile, bodily, visible and tangible, and Lewis & Short find it rare but classical and most frequent in Lucretius.[6][2] It also means made of flesh, as Ovid has of a shoulder that had once been of flesh,[2] and relating to the body, bodily, as Cicero has of the bodily fire that preserves life.[2] A gloss defines the corporeum as what has a body, such as an animal or a man.[3] English corporeal is built on it in the 1610s.[7]

Timeline

  • 116–27 BC – Varro, of the soul's bodily husk.[2][3][4]
  • 96–55 BC – Lucretius, often.[6][3][4]
  • 81–43 BC – Cicero, of the material world.[6][2][4]
  • 1610s – English corporeal.[7]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. Having a body, corporeal, material.[2][6][1]
  2. Made of flesh, fleshy.[2][1]
  3. Of the body, bodily, physical.[2][1]

Word family

  • incorporeus
  • semicorporeus
  • unicorporeus

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b c d e Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
  4. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
  5. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
  6. ^ a b c d Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  7. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com