Pl. corpora {IPA: "kO:Rp@r@}.
etymology
L.; = body.
1. The body of a man or animal. (Cf. corpse
.)
Formerly frequent; now only humorous or grotesque.
QUOTATION(S):
circa 1440 York Myst. xxxiii. 430
"We ar combered his corpus for to cary."
1490 CAXTON, Eneydos li. (1890) 143
"They came wyth the corpus, makyng gret mone."
1531 in W. H. Turner Select. Rec. Oxford 104
"He was lothe to goe and see the ded corpus."
1709 Brit. Apollo II. No. 19. 3/2
"His Corpus (Now bulky as Porpus)."
1799 Piece Fam. Biogr. II. 108
"They ate up his corpus, his hands and his feet."
1849 LYTTON, K. Arthur IX. xcvi,
"A sick polypus..Stretch'd out its claws to incorporate my
corpus."
before 1854 Villikins & his Dinah (in Mus.
Bouquet, No. 452),
"He kissed her cold corpus a thousand times o'er."
2. Phys. A structure of a special character or
function in the animal body, as corpus callosum, the
transverse commissure connecting the cerebral hemispheres; so also
corpora quadrigemina, striata, etc. of
the brain, corpus spongiosum and corpora
cavernosa of the penis, etc.; corpus luteum [L.
luteus, -um yellow] (pl. corpora lutea),
a yellowish body developed in the ovary from the ruptured Graafian
follicle after discharge of the ovum; it secretes progesterone and
other hormones and after a few days degenerates unless fertilization
has occurred, when it remains throughout pregnancy.
QUOTATION(S):
1706 PHILLIPS, (ed. Kersey),
"Corpus Callosum (in Anat.) is the upper Part, or
Covering of a Space made by the joyning together of the right and
left Side of the inward Substance of the Brain."
1788 Encycl. Brit. I. 740/2
"In conception, one of these mature ova is supposed..to be
squeezed out of its nidus into the Fallopian tube; after which the
ruptured part forms a substance which in some animals is of a yellow
colour, and is therefore called corpus luteum."
1851 CARPENTER, Man. Phys. (1865) 581
"The ganglionic matter of the Corpora Striata."
1874 ---, Ment. Phys. App. (1879) 715
"Experiments on the Corpora Quadrigemina (or Optic Ganglia).
" 1869 HUXLEY, Phys. xi. 298
"The floor of the lateral ventricle is formed by a mass of
nervous matter, called the corpus striatum."
1910 Surg., Gyn. & Obstetr. X. 221/2 (heading)
"Extract of corpus luteum in disturbances of artificial and
physiologic menopause."
Ibid.,
"An extract made from the corpora lutea of beef ovaries [was
used] rather than an extract of the entire ovary."
1926 J. S. HUXLEY, Ess. Pop. Sci. v. 60
"The number of corpora lutea, or traces of discharged ova in the
ovaries."
1939 Ann. Reg. 1938 372
"Corpus luteum hormone and its derivatives."
1959 New Biol. XXX. 79
"As in mammals, glandular bodies known as corpora lutea are
produced in the ovaries of viviparous (and also of some oviparous)
reptiles, in places from which the eggs have been shed at ovulation.
3. A body or complete collection of writings or the like;
the whole body of literature on any subject.
QUOTATION(S):
1727-51 CHAMBERS, Cycl. s.v.,
"Corpus is also used in matters of learning, for several
works of the same nature, collected, and bound together..We have also
a corpus of the Greek poets..The corpus of the civil
law is composed of the digest, code, and institutes."
1865 MOZLEY, Mirac. i. 16
"Bound up inseparably with the whole corpus of Christian
tradition."
1876 GLADSTONE, in Contemp. Rev., June 14
"Assaults on the corpus of Scripture."
1886 Athenæum 14 Aug. 211/1
"The completion of such a corpus of Oriental numismatics."
3. b. The body of written or spoken material upon which a
linguistic analysis is based.
QUOTATION(S):
1956 W. S. ALLEN, in Trans. Philol. Soc. 128
"The analysis here presented is based on the speech of a single
informant..and in particular upon a corpus of material, of which a
large proportion was narrative, derived from approximately 100 hours
of listening."
1963 Language XXXIX. 1
"In the analysis of the data, the structural features of the
corpora will first be described."
1964 E. PALMER, tr. Martinet's Elem. General Linguistics ii.
40
"The theoretical objection one may make against the 'corpus`
method is that two investigators operating on the same language but
starting from different 'corpuses`, may arrive at different
descriptions of the same language."
1971 J. B. CARROLL, et al. Word Frequency Bk. p. xxvii,
"How many types does one have to 'know` to know 95% of the
tokens in the population of texts from which a corpus has been
derived?"
1983 G. LEECH, et al. in Trans. Philol. Soc. 25
"We hope that this will be judged..as an attempt to explore the
possibilities and problems of corpus-based research by reference to
first-hand experience, instead of by a general survey."
4. The body or material substance of anything; principal,
as opposed to interest or income.
QUOTATION(S):
1844 WILLIAMS, Real Prop. (1877) 225
"Not only the income, but also the corpus of any property,
whether real or personal."
1884 Law Rep. 25 Chanc. Div. 711
"If these costs were properly incurred they ought to be paid out
of corpus and not out of income."
5. phr. corpus delicti (see quot. 1832
); also, in lay use, the concrete evidence of a crime, esp. the body
of a murdered person. corpus juris: a body of law;
esp. the body of Roman or civil law (corpus juris
civilis).
QUOTATION(S):
1832 AUSTIN, Jurispr. (1879) I. xxiv. 479
"Corpus delicti (a phrase introduced by certain modern
civilians) is a collective name for the sum or aggregate of the
various ingredients which make a given fact a breach of a given law.
" Ibid. II. xlv. 796
"The very best attempts yet made to distribute the corpus
juris into parts."
1863 N.Y. State Court of Appeals, Rep. IV. 179
"The corpus delicti, in murder, has two components, death
as the result and the criminal agency of another as the means."
1891 Fortn. Rev. Sept. 338
"The translation..of the Corpus Juris into French."
1908 HAWTHORNE, Libr. Best Myst. & Detective Stories 89
"The term 'corpus delicti` is technical, and means the
body of the crime, or the substantial fact that a crime has been
committed."
1922 JOYCE, Ulysses 451
"(He extends his portfolio.) We have here damning
evidence, the corpus delicti, my lord, a specimen of my
maturer work disfigured by the hallmark of the beast."
1964 Sunday Mail Mag. (Brisbane) 13 Sept. 3/3
"An enthusiastic trooper, one of a party investigating river,
dam and hollow log in search of the corpus delicti, found some
important evidence in a fallen tree."
6. (obs) obs. by corpus bones: perh. a
confusion of corpus Domini and Goddes bones: cf. also
cops body! s.v. COPS 2.
QUOTATION(S):
circa 1386 CHAUCER, Pard. Prol. 28
"By corpus [2 MSS. corps] bones, but I haue triacle.
" ---, Prioress' Prol. 1 (Harl.)
"'Wel sayd, by corpus boones [6 texts corpus dominus]!`
quod oure host."
---, Monk's Prol. 18
"By corpus [Harl. corpes Petw. goddes] bones, I
wol haue thy knyf."
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