What is the meaning of the Latin root corpus?

The Latin root corpus means “body.” In classical Latin, corpus referred to a living or dead physical body, and its genitive form was corporis. English inherited the root through scholarly, medical, legal, and religious vocabulary.

The root appears in words such as corporeal, meaning physical or bodily, and corpuscle, meaning a small body or particle. In anatomy, corpus can name a body or main portion of an organ, as in the corpus of the stomach. The phrase corpus luteum literally means “yellow body,” referring to a temporary structure in the ovary.

Corpus also developed a figurative meaning: a body or organized whole made of separate parts. That is why a corpus of literature means a collected body of texts, and an artist’s corpus is their complete body of work. In law, habeas corpus means “you shall have the body,” while corpus delicti means the “body of the crime.”

A common mix-up is assuming corpus only means “dead body.” Although it can refer to a corpse in some contexts, its basic Latin meaning is simply “body,” whether physical, collective, or figurative. Its usual English plural is corpora.