Etymology

exquisite corpse

Today it means: A collective art game in which several collaborating artists assemble a sentence or image, usually by following a prompt, or being allowed to see the only last contribution. Full definition →

French cadavre exquis
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The story

  1. French · calque ofcadavre exquis
  2. English todayexquisite corpse

Calque of French cadavre exquis. First coined in 1925 by surrealists André Breton, Marcel Duhamel, Jacques Prévert, and Yves Tanguy in a similar manner to consequences; the first example was constructed from the following prompt: Le cadavre exquis boira le vin nouveau (“the exquisite corpse will drink new wine”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.