late 15c. "body size" (either large or small, with adjective), from Old French corpulence (14c.) "corpulence; physical size, build," from Latin corpulentia "grossness of body," abstract noun from corpulentus "fleshy, fat," from corpus "body" (from PIE root *kwrep- "body, form, appearance") + -ulentus "full of." In English, the restriction to "bulkiness, obesity, largeness of body" began late 16c. Earlier it meant "corporeality" (late 14c.). Related: Corpulency; corpulentness.
1847, "pertaining to the relation between mind and body; relating to both soul and body," from Greek psykhē "mind" (see psyche) + sōmatikos, from sōma (genitive sōmatos) "body" (see somato-). Applied from 1938 to physical disorders with psychological causes. Etymologically, it could as easily apply to emotional disorders with physical causes, but it is rarely so used.
"matter of any kind," literally "a body," (plural corpora), late 14c., "body," from Latin corpus, literally "body" (see corporeal). The sense of "body of a person" (mid-15c. in English) and "collection of facts or things" (1727 in English) both were present in Latin.
Also used in various medical phrases, such as corpus callosum (1706, literally "tough body"), corpus luteum (1788, literally "yellow body"). Corpus Christi (late 14c.), feast of the Blessed Sacrament, is kept on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday. The city in Texas is named after the bay, which was so called by Spanish explorer Alonso Álvarez de Pineda, who discovered it on Corpus Christi day in 1519.
early 15c., "spiritual, immaterial," with -al (1) and Late Latin incorporeus "without body," from in- "not" (see in- (1)) + adjective from corpus (genitive corporis) "body" (from PIE root *kwrep- "body, form, appearance"). The Old French adjective was incorporel. Glossed in Old English as lichhaemleas (see lich).
early 15c., "thin layer of skin or soft tissue of the body," a term in anatomy, from Latin membrana "a skin, membrane; parchment (skin prepared for writing)," from membrum "limb, member of the body" (see member). The etymological sense is "that which covers the members of the body."
late 14c., "to put (something) into the body or substance of (something else), blend; absorb, eat," also "solidify, harden," often in medical writing, from Late Latin incorporatus, past participle of incorporare "unite into one body, embody, include," from Latin in- "into, in, on, upon" (from PIE root *en "in") + verb from corpus (genitive corporis) "body" (from PIE root *kwrep- "body, form, appearance").
Meaning "to legally form a body politic with perpetual succession and power to act as one person, establish as a legal corporation" is from mid-15c. (A verb corporate was used in this sense from early 15c.) Intransitive sense of "unite with another body so as to become part of it" is from 1590s. Related: Incorporated; incorporating.
originally "body lice," 1917, see cootie.
"a dead body, a corpse," late 14c., from Latin cadaver "dead body (of men or animals)," probably from a perfective participle of cadere "to fall, sink, settle down, decline, perish," from PIE root *kad- "to fall." Compare Greek ptoma "dead body," literally "a fall" (see ptomaine); poetic English the fallen "those who have died in battle."
