body

plural bodies · alternative obsolete bodie

1. Physical frame.
   1. countableThe physical structure of a human or animal seen as one single organism.First known use 9th c.

      I saw them walking from a distance, their bodies strangely angular in the dawn light.

      2 more examples

      If the foot shall say, Because I am not the hand, I am not of the body: is it therefore not of the body? And if the eare shall say, Because I am not the eye, I am not of the body: is it therefore not of the body? If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where were the smelling? But now hath God set the members, euery one of them in the body, as it hath pleased him. And if they were all one member, where were the body? But now are they many members, yet but one body.

      1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, 1 Corinthians 12:15–20

      Lizzo, who is known for messages of self-love and wider acceptance, has recently said as much as she shared that she is encouraging a stance of body neutrality for herself and others. […] “Everyone’s bodies change,” she said. “That’s life, that’s what the human existence is.”

      2023 May 29, Madeline Holcombe, “Lizzo is teaching us about body neutrality. Here is what it means and how to get there”, in CNN, archived from the original on 25 Apr 2024

   2. countableuncountableThe fleshly or corporeal nature of a human, as opposed to the spirit or soul.First known use 13th c.

      The body is driven by desires, but the soul is at peace.

      Synonyms: tabernacle

   3. countableA corpse.First known use 13th c.

      Her body was found at four o’clock, just two hours after the murder.

      1 more example

      The bodies of 19-year-old best friends Holly Bowles and Bianca Jones were returned to Australia on Tuesday night.

      2024 November 27, Jessie Yeung and Isaac Yee, “Laos detains foreign hostel staff over backpacker methanol poisonings as families and travelers demand answers”, in CNN

   4. countableslanguncountableAfrican-American VernacularA murder.First known use 13th c.

      His gun had two bodies on it.

      1 more example

      He caught a body and got forty years in prison.

   5. countableuncountablearchaic or informal except in compoundsA person.First known use 13th c.

      What’s a body gotta do to get a drink around here?

      5 more examples

      Indeed, if it belonged to a poor body, it would be another thing; but so great a lady, to be sure, can never want it […]

      "Will ye giv a body a taste o' yer beer to thry?" sez Tom.

      1850, Thomas Keightley, The Fairy Mythology, London: H.G. Bohn, page 374

      Sometime I've set right down and eat WITH him. But you needn't tell that. A body's got to do things when he's awful hungry he wouldn't want to do as a steady thing.

      1876, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], chapter 28, in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Hartford, Conn.: The American Publishing Company, →OCLC

      “Well,” I says, “I cal’late a body could get used to Tophet if he stayed there long enough.” ¶ She flared up; the least mite of a slam at Doctor Wool was enough to set her going.

      1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter V, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC

      Cobb Belcher's downstairs. He wants to buy you a beer. Says a body who can whip his brother Dell must be a body worth knowing.

      1995 June 30, Cyberflix, Dust: A Tale of the Wired West, GTE Entertainment, 16-bit Windows, level/area: Hard Drive

   6. countableuncountablehuman sciencesA human being, regarded as marginalized or oppressed.

      In doing so, Haritaworn also rethinks the marginality of transgender bodies and practices in queer movements and spaces.

      2012, Trystan T. Cotten, Transgender Migrations, page 3

      3 more examples

      the early modern English husband not only took control over his wife's property upon marriage, he also acquired property in her body.

      1994, M. Lindsey Kaplan, Katherine Eggert, ““Good queen, my lord, good queen” - Sexual Slander and the Trials of Female Authority in “The Winter's Tale””, in Renaissance Drama, volume 25, →DOI, page 93 of 89–118

      This, of course, was not about the State, but it was certainly an invasion: black bodies acting out in a public domain circumscribed by a racist culture. The Garvey movement presents an example of black bodies transgressing racialized spatial boundaries.

      1999, Devon Carbado, Black Men on Race, Gender, and Sexuality: A Critical Reader, page 87

      As the title suggests, this project is particularly interested in how race intersects with reproductive technologies—how brown bodies are deployed in the creation of white babies.

      2016, Laura Harrison, Brown Bodies, White Babies, page 5

2. Main section.
   1. countableuncountableThe torso, the main structure of a human or animal frame excluding the extremities (limbs, head, tail).First known use 9th c.

      The boxer took a blow to the body.

   2. countableuncountableThe largest or most important part of anything, as distinct from its appendages or accessories; (of vehicles, sometimes) the outer shell (as contrasted with the frame and powertrain).First known use 11th c.

      The bumpers and front tyres were ruined, but the body of the car was in remarkable shape.

      2 more examples

      The railless vehicles have been supplied by the Railless Electric Traction Company, of London, as contractors, to the joint specification of the general managers of the Leeds and Bradford Tramways. The bodies have all been constructed by Messrs. Hurst, Nelson and Company, of Motherwell.

      1911 July 6, “Railless traction at Leeds and Bradford”, in The Tramway and Railway World: A Review of Current Progress in Electric and Other Traction, volume 30, number July 6, London, England, page 11

      The executives of the Motor Truck Body Company are practical men, who have had large experience, and have, from their careful study of the conditions and the needs for vehicle bodies, qualifications that insure to their patrons the best that sound engineering, skilled workmansbip and high class material can produce. The president of the concern, Frederick Proctor, is the engineer and designer, and he was for a considerable length of time in charge of the designing of truck bodies for the Packard Motor Car Company. Elmer T. Hangstefer, secretary, treasurer and general manager, had charge of the truck body accounting department of the Packard plant, and the factory and production manager, Harry Carrier, for several years built the Packard truck bodies. In designing bodies Mr. Proctor has originality and as his experience has been with the wagon and carriage trade as well, he has produced types that are practical and sightly and are especially adapted for the service required. Mr Hangstefer has established a cost system that insures to the purchaser the exact value for the job—not an approximation or an average. He had charge of cost estimating at the Packard factory and figures to exactness. The employees have all had training in power wagon factories and are regarded as expert workmen.

      1912 July 28, “Building special motor truck bodies”, in The Motor Truck: Devoted to Motor Driven Business Vehicles of All Classes, volume 3, number 7, Pawtucket, Rhode Island, page 445

   3. archaiccountableuncountableThe section of a dress extending from the neck to the waist, excluding the arms.First known use 16th c.

      Penny was in the scullery, pressing the body of her new dress.

   4. countableuncountableThe content of a letter, message, or other printed or electronic document, as distinct from signatures, salutations, headers, and so on.First known use 17th c.
   5. countableA bodysuit.First known use 19th c.
   6. countableuncountablecomputingThe code of a subroutine, contrasted to its signature and parameters.First known use 20th c.

      In many programming languages, the method body is enclosed in braces.

   7. countableuncountablearchitectureNave.
3. Coherent group.
   1. countableuncountableA group of people having a common purpose or opinion; a mass.First known use 16th c.

      I was escorted from the building by a body of armed security guards.

   2. countableuncountableAn organisation, company or other authoritative group.First known use 17th c.

      The local train operating company is the managing body for this section of track.

   3. countableuncountableA unified collection of details, knowledge or information.First known use 17th c.

      We have now amassed a body of evidence which points to one conclusion.

4. Material entity.
   1. countableAny physical object or material thing.First known use 14th c.

      All bodies are held together by internal forces.

      1 more example

      Arriving during late spring in the satellite's southern hemisphere, Voyager found the coldest body in the solar system, minus 235°C (-391°F).

      1990 August, Rick Gore, “Neptune: Voyager's Last Picture Show”, in National Geographic, volume 178, number 2, page 42

   2. uncountableSubstance; physical presence.First known use 17th c.

      We have given body to what was just a vague idea.

      1 more example

      The voice had an extraordinary sadness. Pure from all body, pure from all passion, going out into the world, solitary, unanswered, breaking against rocks—so it sounded.

      1922 October 26, Virginia Woolf, chapter 1, in Jacob’s Room, Richmond, London: […] Leonard & Virginia Woolf at the Hogarth Press, →OCLC; republished London: The Hogarth Press, 1960, →OCLC

   3. uncountableComparative viscosity, solidity or substance (in wine, colours etc.).First known use 17th c.

      The red wine, sadly, lacked body.

      1 more example

      "I’d Be Lost Without You" seems somewhat out of place from a vocal viewpoint — Lewis’s slightly reedy middle soprano is very expressive and absolutely true, but doesn’t have enough dark body to fully deal with the torchy melody.

      1989 August 12, Caroline Foty, “Hindsights”, in Gay Community News, volume 17, number 5, page 7

   4. uncountableVolume.

      Experimented with turning my hair up with cans. Rollers aren't large enough and leave a curl when you want body and just straightness.

      1965 January 7, Lou Sullivan, Diary

   5. countableuncountableAn agglomeration of some substance, especially one that would be otherwise uncountable.

      The English Channel is a body of water lying between Great Britain and France.

      3 more examples

      In a gentle breeze, the whole body of air, as far as the breeze extends, moves at the rate of seven or eight miles an hour; in a high wind, at the rate of seventy, eighty, or an hundred miles an hour […]

      1806 June 26, Thomas Paine, “The cause of Yellow Fever and the means of preventing it, in places not yet infected with it, addressed to the Board of Health in America”, in The political and miscellaneous works of Thomas Paine, page 179

      Using three-dimensional seismic and well data from the northern North Sea, we describe a large (10 km³) body of sand and interpret it as extrusive.

      2012 March 19, Helge Løseth, Nuno Rodrigues, Peter R. Cobbold, “World's largest extrusive body of sand?”, in Geology, volume 40, number 5

      The huge body of ice is in the southeastern edge of a Central Asian region called the Third Pole.

      2018, VOA Learning English > China's Melting Glacier Brings Visitors, Adds to Climate Concerns

5. countableuncountablemediaThe shank of a type, or the depth of the shank (by which the size is indicated).

   a nonpareil face on an agate body

   1 more example

   The stemless notes could have been cast on a body as short as 4 mm but were probably cast on bodies of the standard 14 mm size for ease of composition.

   1992, Mary Kay Duggan, Italian Music Incunabula: Printers and Type, page 99

6. countableuncountablegeometryA three-dimensional object, such as a cube or cone.

present singular third person bodies · participle present bodying · participle past bodied · past bodied · alternative obsolete bodie

1. oftentransitiveTo give body or shape to something.

   And as imagination bodies forth / The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen / Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing / A local habitation and a name.

   c. 1595–1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “A Midsommer Nights Dreame”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, (please specify the act number in uppercase Roman numerals, and the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals)

   2 more examples

   [A]s you stand on the steps of the Castle Green in this strange place, you feel quite floaty. This you are told is the scene of the Merthyr riots; and you feel still floatier as you body forth before your eyes a picture like the following— […]

   1851 March 22, “The Foreign Country at Home. IV. Abergavenny to Swansea.”, in Leigh Hunt, editor, Leigh Hunt’s Journal; a Miscellany for the Cultivation of the Memorable, the Progressive, and the Beautiful, volume I, number 16, London: […] Stewart & Murray, […], →OCLC, page 255

   The drama of the storehouse on earth has its counterpart in Heaven, and if we accept the insights of both Jacobsen and von Dechend, we can see that the myth is bodying forth a principle which will later be expressed in the Hermetic axiom, “As above, so below.” In fact, it is precisely this relationship between above and below that the myth explores.

   1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, London: Rider/Hutchinson & Co., page 175

2. To construct the bodywork of a car.
3. transitiveTo embody.

   I don’t say, one bodies the other / One’s spiritual truth; / But I do say it’s hard to lose either, / When you have both.

   1955, Philip Larkin, Toads

4. slangtransitiveAfrican-American VernacularTo murder someone.
   1. broadlyslangtransitiveAfrican-American VernacularTo utterly defeat someone.

      I keep getting bodied by kids half my age.

      2023, “Gaming at 24”, in hyperx (comic)

alternative Bodie

1. A surname transferred from the nickname.

alternative Bodie

1. archaicCambridge University slangCorpus Christi College, Cambridge.