Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A dead body, especially one intended for dissection.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A dead body; a corpse: as, “a mere cadaver,” Boyle; especially, a body prepared or used for dissection.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A dead human body; a corpse.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A dead body; especially the corpse of a human to be dissected.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the dead body of a human being

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, from Latin cadāver, from cadere, to fall, die; see kad- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Recorded since c.1500, from Latin cadāver, probably from cadō ("I fall") as a metaphor for "I die", also source (through combining form -cida) of the -cide in suicide, homicide etc.

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Examples

  • I love the piece, the Trio, the Flute Sonata, Dialogues des Carmelites, and Fiancailles pour rire (how can you resist a text like "my cadaver is soft as a glove"?) but I think maybe you're reading history back into the Sextet, rather than finding it there.

    Les anges musiciens Matthew Guerrieri 2007

  • I called another cadaver dog handler that I know that works for Osceola County sheriff ` s office, and had her come in for a secondary search.

    CNN Transcript Jan 2, 2009 2009

  • I called another cadaver dog handler that I know that works for Osceola County sheriff ` s office, and had her come in for a secondary search.

    CNN Transcript Nov 28, 2008 2008

  • These images of Christmas cheer are miles away from where I sit now, at the Spence Academy for Young Ladies, forced to construct a drummer boy ornament using only tinfoil, cotton, and a small bit of string, as if performing some diabolical experiment in cadaver regeneration.

    Excerpt: Rebel Angels by Libba Bray 2005

  • Watching a forensic pathologist pop the braincase on a cadaver is a little disturbing, but it’s not so bad after you see it done once or twice.

    EXTRALIFE – By Scott Johnson - Does the sight of actual surgery freak you out? 2007

  • In "Take All of Murphy," the anatomy demonstrator tells the medical students, "This fine cadaver is your first patient.

    Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures by Vincent Lam: Questions 2007

  • Yet Brown’s response to the loss of one who was trying to make as good a fist as possible of the post of defence procurement is to appoint a political cadaver from the Necropolis of the ‘Winter of Discontent’.

    Brown's Dereliction of A Duty Of Care 2007

  • Yet Brown’s response to the loss of one who was trying to make as good a fist as possible of the post of defence procurement is to appoint a political cadaver from the Necropolis of the ‘Winter of Discontent’.

    Archive 2007-11-04 2007

  • The Los Angeles Times says a coroner's sniffer dog, known as a "cadaver dog", found the hand about 50 yards from where the head was discovered.

    Human hand found in Hollywood park 2012

  • This almost got as ugly as those toe-tag cadaver cakes.

    Belly Cakes, Continued Jen 2009

Comments

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  • you must be crazy to think we cadaver have a relationship now that you're dead.

    November 1, 2007

  • Teehee!

    April 7, 2008