corpus

Borrowed from Latin corpus (“body”). Doublet of corpse, corps, and riff.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈkɔːpəs/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈkɔɹpəs/

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɔː(ɹ)pəs
• Hyphenation: cor‧pus

corpus (plural corpora or corpuses or corpusses or (proscribed) corpi)

1. A collection of written or spoken texts.
   • 2011, Patrick Spedding, James Lambert, “Fanny Hill, Lord Fanny, and the Myth of Metonymy”, in Studies in Philology, volume 108, number 1, page 113:

     No one suggests that Browning intended to mean vagina when he wrote “owls and bats, / Cowls and twats,” because the context does not allow for it, nor does the greater context of the Browning corpus.

   1. (specifically, linguistics) Such a collection in form of an electronic database used for linguistic analyses.

      Synonyms: digital corpus, text corpus

      • 2007, Mihail Mihailov, Hannu Tommola, “Compiling Parallel Text Corpora: Towards Automation of Routine Procedures”, in Wolfgang Teubert, editor, Text Corpora and Multilingual Lexicography (Benjamins Current Topics; 8), Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company, →ISBN, page 60:

        Text corpora are being used in most current lexicographic projects. Applied linguistic research is another field where text corpora are welcome as an inexhaustible source of empirical information, a polygon for testing various linguistic tools – spell-checkers, OCRs, machine translation systems, NLP systems, etc.

      • 2008, Anabel Borja, “Corpora for Translators in Spain. The CDJ-GITRAD Corpus and the GENITT Project.”, in Gunilla [M.] Anderman, Margaret Rogers, editors, Incorporating Corpora: The Linguist and the Translator, Clevedon, North Somerset: Multilingual Matters, →ISBN, page 248:

        Comparable corpora are made up of texts in different languages that may be related in various ways, but are not translations of each other. They may have nothing in common at all, or be on the same subject, of the same genre, or from the same chronological period, etc.

      • 2013, “Introduction”, in Gerry Knowles, Briony Williams, L[ita] Taylor, editors, A Corpus of Formal British English Speech: The Lancaster/IBM Spoken English Corpus, Abingdon, Oxon., New York, N.Y.: Routledge, →ISBN, page 1:

        The Lancaster/IBM Spoken English Corpus began in September 1984 as part of a research project into the automatic assignment of intonation […] The original design of the corpus was determined by the need to provide data for research into speech synthesis. As a result, unlike most other corpora currently being used in the computational linguistics field, the SEC exists in several forms. […] However, whatever the original motivation for compiling a corpus, it quickly becomes an object of interest in its own right. New users find it valuable for applications for which it was not designed.

   • 2014, Giuseppina Balossi, “Corpus Approaches to the Study of Language and Literature”, in A Corpus Linguistic Approach to Literary Language and Characterization: Virginia Woolf's The Waves (Linguistic Approaches to Literature; 18), Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company, →ISBN, page 41:

     A corpus approach is a useful methodology for observing, describing and interpreting the stylistic features of language in literary and non-literary texts.

   • 2018, James Lambert, “A multitude of ‘lishes’: The nomenclature of hybridity”, in English World-Wide‎^[1], page 4:

     Today, computer databases and corpora infinitely increase the ease of this type of research, but the collecting process remains essentially the same.

2. (physics) A structure of a special character or function in the animal body.

   the corpus of the uterus

3. (uncommon) A collection or body of objects with similar characteristics.

   Synonyms: collection; see also Thesaurus:body

   • 1998, Dimitǎr Draganov, “New Coin Types of Hadrianopolis”, in Ulrike Peter, editor, Stephanos Nomismatikos: Edith Schönert-Geiss zum 65. Geburtstag (Griechisches Münzwerk), Berlin: Akademie Verlag, →ISBN, page 221:

     About a hundred years ago in Germany, the publishing of corpuses of the ancient Greek coinages was started. […] The significance of those, and some other corpuses is exclusive, because they allowed an enormous amount of numismatic material kept in museum and private collections all over the world, to be studied and systematized.

   • 2014, Margaret Darling, Barbara Precious, “Introduction”, in A Corpus of Roman Pottery from Lincoln (Lincoln Archaeological Studies; 6), Oxford: Oxbow Books, →ISBN, page 1:

     An assessment in 1991 proposed publication of the results of this work in three stages: […] secondly, a corpus of the Roman pottery to present the type series and to discuss the fabrics and forms recovered, […]

4. (archaic) The body of a man or animal.

• Of the plurals, corpora is the most common one.^[1]

• Wiktionary:Corpora

• James A. H. Murray et al., editors (1884–1928), “Corpus”, in A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles (Oxford English Dictionary), volume II (C), London: Clarendon Press, →OCLC, page 1012: “1. The body of a man or animal. / […] / 2. Phys. A structure of a special character or function in the animal body  […]”

• croups

Ultimately from Latin corpus.

• IPA^(key): /korpus̺/ [kor.pus̺]
• Rhymes: -orpus̺, -us̺
• Hyphenation: cor‧pus

corpus inan

1. corpus (a collection of writings)

• “corpus”, in Euskaltzaindiaren Hiztegia [Dictionary of the Basque Academy] (in Basque), Euskaltzaindia [Royal Academy of the Basque Language]

Borrowed from Latin corpus. Doublet of cos.

• IPA^(key): (Central, Balearic) [ˈkɔr.pus]
• IPA^(key): (Valencia) [ˈkɔɾ.pus]

corpus m (invariable)

1. corpus (a collection of writings)

• “corpus”, in Diccionari de la llengua catalana [Dictionary of the Catalan Language] (in Catalan), second edition, Institute of Catalan Studies [Catalan: Institut d'Estudis Catalans], April 2007

Borrowed from Latin corpus. Doublet of corps and korps.

• IPA^(key): /ˈkɔr.pʏs/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Hyphenation: cor‧pus

corpus n (plural corpora or corpussen, diminutive corpusje n)

1. a collection of writings, a text corpus

The word retained the original Latin neuter gender. It is one of the few Dutch words ending on -us that is not masculine.

• krantencorpus
• rechtscorpus
• tekstcorpus

• → Indonesian: korpus

• “corpus” in Woordenlijst Nederlandse Taal – Officiële Spelling, Nederlandse Taalunie. [the official spelling word list for the Dutch language]

Unadapted borrowing from Latin corpus (“body”). Doublet of corps.

• IPA^(key): /kɔʁ.pys/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Audio (Lyon):

  (file)

• Audio (Switzerland, Lausanne):

  (file)

corpus m (plural corpus)

1. (linguistics) a corpus, a body of texts

• “corpus”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

From Proto-Italic *korpos, from Proto-Indo-European *krépos (“body”), from the root *krep-. Equivalent to the Proto-Germanic neuter noun *hrefaz (“body, torso”), whence e.g. Old High German href, Old Dutch ref, Old English hrif (> English riff).^[1]

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [ˈkɔr.pʊs]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [ˈkɔr.pus]
• Hyphenation: cor‧pus

corpus n (genitive corporis); third declension

1. (anatomy) body, person (person when used to mean "human body", e.g., "on one's person")
   • c. 65 AD, Seneca Minor, Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium, Epistula XCII

     Nemo liber est qui corpori servit.

     No one is free who is a slave to the body.

2. substance, material (physical, perceptible to the senses)

   Synonym: rēs

3. the flesh of an animal's body
4. a corpse

   Synonyms: cadāver, mors, fūnus, caedēs

5. the trunk or shaft of something
6. (figuratively) the wood under the bark of a tree
7. (Medieval Latin) a corpus (collection of writings by a single author or addressing a certain topic)
8. (metonymic) person, individual
   • 27 BCE – 25 BCE, Titus Livius, Ab Urbe Condita 3.56:

     qui liberum corpus in servitutem addixisset

     who as a free person might have been sentenced to slavery

9. (metonymic) a frame, body, system, structure, community, corporation

Third-declension noun (neuter, imparisyllabic non-i-stem).

• “corpus”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “corpus”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• "corpus", in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
• corpus in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• Carl Meißner, Henry William Auden (1894) Latin Phrase-Book‎^[2], London: Macmillan and Co.
  • to spread over the whole body: per totum corpus diffundi
    
  • bodily strength: vires corporis or merely vires
    
  • a good constitution: firma corporis constitutio or affectio
    
  • sensual pleasure: voluptates (corporis)
    
  • to refresh oneself, minister to one's bodily wants: corpus curare (cibo, vino, somno)
    
  • to devote oneself body and soul to the good of the state: totum et animo et corpore in salutem rei publicae se conferre
    
  • the free men are sold as slaves: libera corpora sub corona (hasta) veneunt (B. G. 3. 16. 4)
    
  • wounds (scars) on the breast: vulnera adverso corpore accepta
    
• “corpus”, in William Smith et al., editor (1890), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, London: William Wayte. G. E. Marindin
• Sihler, Andrew L. (1995) New Comparative Grammar of Greek and Latin, Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, →ISBN

• porcus, procus, spurcō

• córpus (nonstandard)

Unadapted borrowing from Latin corpus. Doublet of corpo and cós.

• Rhymes: -ɔʁpus, -ɔɾpuʃ
• Homophone: corpos
• Hyphenation: cor‧pus

corpus m (plural corpora or (nonstandard) corpus)

1. (linguistics) corpus (collection of writings)

This term is prescriptively spelled without an accent and italicized; the adapted spelling córpus is nonstandard.

• “corpus”, in Michaelis Dicionário Brasileiro da Língua Portuguesa (in Portuguese), São Paulo: Editora Melhoramentos, 2015–2025
• “corpus”, in Dicionário infopédia da Língua Portuguesa (in Portuguese), Porto: Porto Editora, 2003–2025
• “corpus”, in Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa (in Portuguese), Lisboa: Academia das Ciências de Lisboa, 2001–2025
• “corpus”, in Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa (in Portuguese), Lisbon: Priberam, 2008–2025
• “corpus”, in Dicionário Aulete Digital (in Portuguese), Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon Editora Digital, 2008–2025

Borrowed from Latin corpus. Doublet of corp.

• IPA^(key): /ˈkor.pus/

corpus n (plural corpusuri)

1. corpus

• “corpus”, in DEX online—Dicționare ale limbii române (Dictionaries of the Romanian language) (in Romanian), 2004–2025

From Latin corpus, from Proto-Italic *korpos, from Proto-Indo-European *krépos ~ *krépesos, derived from the root *krep- (“body”). Compare English riff.

• IPA^(key): /ˈkorpus/, [ˈkor.pu.zŭ]

corpus m (plural corpos)

1. (anatomy) body (physical structure of a human or animal)

   tènnere unu corpus atlèticu ― to have an athletic body

2. body (fleshly or corporeal nature of a human)

   Antonyms: ànima, ispìritu

   sos disìgios de su corpus ― the body's desires

3. body (any physical object or material thing)

   Cale si siat corpus est sugetu a sa fortza de gravidade ― Any body is subject to gravitational force

4. body, corpse
5. body (organisation, company or other authoritative group)

Borrowed from Latin corpus, possibly through the intermediate of English corpus, according to the RAE.^[1] Doublet of the inherited cuerpo.

• IPA^(key): /ˈkoɾpus/ [ˈkoɾ.pus]
• Rhymes: -oɾpus
• Syllabification: cor‧pus

corpus m (plural corpus)

1. corpus (a collection of writings)

• “corpus”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 10 December 2024