English → Latin
“corpse” in Latin
corpusbody, person (person when used to mean "human body", e.g., "on one's person"); substance, material (physical, perceptiblhomō̆human, person, man; male human being, man; term of address to male peers, especially by another man: man, fellow, mate, mortuusdead, having died; decayed, withered; faint, overwhelmedmoriorto die, be slain, fall (in battle), perish; to decay, withercadāvercorpse, cadaver, carcass
The English word corpse itself goes back to Latin corpus.
Riddle & Arnold A Copious and Critical English–Latin Lexicon, 1864
corpse
corpus mortuum: corpus (hominis) mortui; also corpus only, or mortuus (we find corpus examine and exanimum only in Liv., 8, 24, and Curt. 10, 10, 12): cadaver (in a slate of decomposition, as Cic., Mil., 13, 33; Clodii cruentum cadaver canibus dilamandum relinquere; only in later writers = corpus mortuum generally): funus (the corpse, with reference to the obsequies) anybody’s corpse, corpus alicujus; aliquis mortuus; funus alicujus: to wash, lay out, embalm, etc. the corpse, corpus mortuum curare: to bury a corpse, corpus mortuum efferre or sepelire.
Quick answer
- What is the Latin word for corpse?
- The usual Latin words for “corpse” are corpus, homō̆, mortuus; also morior, cadāver. The right choice depends on the sense; see the distinctions below.
Entry from J. E. Riddle & T. K. Arnold, A Copious and Critical English–Latin Lexicon (rev. C. Anthon, New York: Harper, 1864), digitised by Fergus J. P. Walsh, CC BY-SA 4.0; Latin markup adapted by latindictionary.co.