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''corps'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260320113731-00-⌔

corps - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Noun

corps (plural corps)

  • (military) A battlefield formation composed of two or more divisions.
  • An organized group of people united by a common purpose.
    • ✤ *diplomatic corps *
    • ✤ *White House press corps *

Noun

corps (plural corps)

  • A corps de ballet.
    • ✤ The performers were all creditable dancers as well as comedians […] even the largest of them cavorted about en pointe with wonderful ease, and the corps work was extremely precise in its inaccuracies.1

Noun

corps

  • plural of corp

Noun

corps (plural corpses)

  • Obsolete spelling of corpse.
    • ✤ How to keep the corps ſeven dayes from corruption by anointing and waſhing, without exenteration, were an hazardable peece of art, in our choiſeſt practiſe.2
    • ✤ To mee, who with eternal Famin pine,/Alike is Hell, or Paradiſe, or Heaven,/There beſt, where moſt with ravin I may meet;/Which here, though plenteous, all too little ſeems/To ſtuff this Maw, this vaſt unhide-bound Corps.3
    • ✤ Did I poſſeſs the power of reſuſcitation, I would reanimate thy lifeleſs corps, and cheriſh thee in the warmeſt corner of thy favourite dwelling-place.4
    • ✤ The women looked like dead bodies; and never did I see such a sepulchral appearance as their dress and colourless faces exhibited, they were all dressed alike in drab gowns, white neck kerchiefs, and a cap fitting close over their ears, and fastened under the chin, the same sort as are placed on a corps.5

Etymology 1

From French corps d’armée (literally “army body”), from Latin corpus (“body”). Doublet of corpse and corpus. See also English riff.

Pronunciation

Etymology 2

Etymology 3

Clipping.

Etymology 4

Printed 2026-06-28.

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Footnotes

  1. 1981 December 12, David Foushee, “Pushing the Edges”, in Gay Community News, volume 9, number 21, page 6: ↩

  2. 1658, Thomas Browne, Hydriotaphia, Urne-Buriall, or, A Discourse of the Sepulchrall Urnes Lately Found in Norfolk […], London: […] Hen. Brome […], page 16: ↩

  3. 1667, John Milton, “Book IX”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a] nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a] nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC, lines 597–601: ↩

  4. 1788, [Vicesimus Knox], Winter Evenings: or, Lucubrations on Life and Letters, volume II, Dublin: […] Messrs. Chamberlaine, Moncrieffe, White, […], page 70: ↩

  5. 1818, John Palmer, Journal of Travels in the United States of North America, and in Lower Canada, Performed in the Year 1817: […], London: […] Sherwood, Neely, and Jones, […], page 92: ↩

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