corps

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A separate branch or department of the armed forces having a specialized function.
2. n. A tactical unit of ground combat forces between a division and an army commanded by a lieutenant general and composed of two or more divisions and auxiliary service troops.
3. n. A body of persons acting together or associated under common direction: the press corps. See Synonyms at band².

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. The older spelling of corpse.
2. n. A body; a visible object: only in the legal phrase corps certain (which see, below).
3. n. A body or number of persons conventionally or formally associated or acting together: as, the diplomatic corps. See Corps Législatif, below, and esprit de corps, under esprit.
4. n. Milit.: A part of the army expressly organized according to the Articles or War, and having a head and members, as a regiment or an independent company, or any other military body having such organization: as, the Marine Corps; the Corps of Topographical Engineers; hospital corps, etc.
5. n. More specifically, the tactical unit of a large army next above a division. It is usually composed of several divisions of infantry and cavalry, contingents of artillery and other branches of the service, and is to a large degree complete in itself. France has 20 corps d'armée, 18 in the country, and 2 in Algeria and Tunis, and Germany has an even larger number. The number of men varies from about 18,000 to about 40,000. See army-corps.
6. n. In the German universities, a students' society.
7. n. One of the several bodies of officers charged with special administrative duties in the army or navy. In the United States navy the corps are as follows: medical corps, in charge of the sanitary and medical service; pay corps, in charge of supplies and stores, commissary, accounts, disbursements of money; corps of chaplains; corps of naval constructors, in charge of building and repairs of vessels; corps of professors of mathematics, in charge of work at the Naval Observatory and instruction at the Naval Academy; and corps of civil engineers, in charge of construction of dry-docks, buildings, and civil-engineering work generally at navy-yards.
8. n. a body of picked men.

Wiktionary

1. n. military A battlefield formation composed of two or more divisions.
2. n. An organized group of people united by a common purpose.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. obsolete The human body, whether living or dead.
2. n. A body of men; esp., an organized division of the military establishment; ; specifically, an army corps.
3. n. obsolete A body or code of laws.
4. n. (Eccl.), obsolete The land with which a prebend or other ecclesiastical office is endowed.
5. n. In some countries of Europe, a form of students' social society binding the members to strict adherence to certain student customs and its code of honor; -- Ger. spelling usually korps.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. a body of people associated together
2. n. an army unit usually consisting of two or more divisions and their support