the corpse at every funeral

A form of the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral — The perpetual center of attention.

Meanings

phrase
  1. USabbreviationrareShort for the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral.

    She will pay less attention to mother, who through necessity, may begin to shed some of her dependency and her enjoyment of being the corpse at every funeral.

    1973, Ratibor-Ray M. Jurjevich, Direct Psychotherapy: Assertion-structured Therapy, University of Miami Press, →ISBN, page 289
    2 more examples

    Ngeze is a good guy, he would say. Ngeze is a good-looking guy. "Hassan Ngeze wants to be the corpse at every funeral," those who knew him would add, laughing.

    2005, Dina Temple-Raston, Justice on the Grass: Three Rwandan Journalists, Their Trial for War Crimes and a Nation's Quest for Redemption, Free Press, →ISBN, page 39

    He stood with the pistol pressed to the back of his head and looked across the river toward his home in Central Texas where his two ancestors died violently. Alice Roosevelt Longworth said about her father Theodore's need for attention that he always wanted to be the corpse at every funeral. This time Jenkins got his wish.

    2020, Michael Vinson, Bluffing Texas Style: The Arsons, Forgeries, and High-Stakes Poker Capers of Rare Book Dealer Johnny Jenkins, University of Oklahoma Press, →ISBN, page 184
Cite this entry
APA

the corpse at every funeral. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/the%20corpse%20at%20every%20funeral

MLA

“the corpse at every funeral.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/the%20corpse%20at%20every%20funeral. Accessed November 5, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “the corpse at every funeral,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/the%20corpse%20at%20every%20funeral.

Source: the corpse at every funeral on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.