corpse

plural corpses · alternative obsolete corps · alternative obsolete corse

1. A dead body, especially that of a human as opposed to an animal.

   I saw battle-corpses, myriads of them, / And the white skeletons of young men, I saw them, / I saw the debris and debris of all the slain soldiers of the war, […]

   1865, Walt Whitman, “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d”, in Sequel to Drum-Taps: When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d and other poems

2. The dead body of any animal with flesh; the dead body of a vertebrate; a carcass.

   Nelson and I landed next to the half rotted corpse of a horse full of maggots.

   2005, J. C. Arlington, A Red Horse Rode Out, West Conshohoken, PA: Infinity Publishing, page 91

   2 more examples

   Cantharidin, although readily decomposed by chemical agents, is so permanent in the body that it has been detected in the corpse of a cat eighty-four days after death.

   1885, Alexander Wynter Blyth, Poisons, Their Effects and Detection: A Manual for the Use of Analytical Chemists and Experts, volume I, New York: William Wood and Co., page 430

   Near Smeinogorsk an octagonal tumulus has been found containing the corpse of a horse near a rectangular one with a human corpse, both within stone circles.

   1898, Friedrich Ratzel, The History of Mankind, volume III, London: Macmillan and Co., page 325

3. archaicderogatorysometimesA human body in general, whether living or dead.

   Synonyms: bod, body, bones, flesh, carcass, likam, quarrons, soma

present singular third person corpses · participle present corpsing · participle past corpsed · past corpsed · alternative obsolete corps · alternative obsolete corse

1. intransitiveslangTo laugh uncontrollably during a performance.

   Poor Damian corpsed and almost forgot his next lines. The director gave him a terrific lecture, and Alan caught hell from stage management.

   1993, Bevan Amberhill, The Bloody Man, Mercury Press, →ISBN

   2 more examples

   The rest of the day and the week were spent blocking and learning the lines. The only drama was the predictable one of being ticked off for corpsing. Rupert was quite as bad as me when it came to giggling and the tea-party scene which took place between Rupert, David Parfitt, Piers Flint-Shipman and I, was too much.

   1989, Kenneth Branagh, Beginning, London: Chatto & Windus, →ISBN, page 94

   There were still moments when she would halt suddenly, like an actor stranded in the middle of the stage, lines forgotten, staring goggle-eyed and making fish-mouths...Corpsing: that was the word.

   1993, John Banville, Ghosts

2. slangtransitiveTo cause another actor to do this.