cadaver

Recorded since c.1500, learned borrowing from Latin cadāver.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /kəˈdæv.ə(ɹ)/, /kəˈdɑːv.ə(ɹ)/, /kəˈdeɪ.və(ɹ)/[1][2]
• (US) IPA^(key): /kəˈdævɚ/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Hyphenation: ca‧dav‧er

cadaver (plural cadavers or cadavera)

1. A dead body; especially the corpse of a human to be dissected.
   • 2020, Raven Leilani, Luster, Picador (2021), page 98:

     “Then my first year of med school, we got our first cadavers, and there was so much data inside. You can be sure a patient will lie about how much they drink or how much they smoke, but with a cadaver, all the information is there.”

• See also Thesaurus:corpse, Thesaurus:body
• body
• corpse

• cadaveric
• cadaverine
• cadaverous
• cadaverize
• cadaverously
• cadaverousness
• cadaver dog

• cadence

From the Latin verb cadō (“I fall”), as a euphemism for dying, "the fallen one". This etymology is found as early as ca. 200 C.E. in the writings of Tertullian, who associated cadaver to cadendo:

• c. 160 CE – c. 225 CE, Tertullian, De Resurrectione Carnis 18:

  Atque adeo caro est quae morte subruitur, ut exinde a cadendo cadaver enuntietur.

  Indeed, the flesh is that which is subsumed by death, and may thereafter be termed "cadaver."

A folk etymology derives cadaver syllabically from the Latin expression caro data vermibus (flesh given to worms). This etymology, more popular in Romance countries, can be traced back as early as the Schoolmen of the Middle Ages.

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /kaˈdaː.u̯er/, [käˈd̪äːu̯ɛr]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /kaˈda.ver/, [käˈd̪äːver]

cadāver n (genitive cadāveris); third declension

1. corpse, cadaver, carcass

   Synonyms: corpus, fūnus, mors, caedēs

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

• cadāverōsus (seemingly dead)

• “cadaver”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “cadaver”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• cadaver in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• “cadaver”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898), Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
• “cadaver”, in William Smith et al., editor (1890), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, London: William Wayte. G. E. Marindin
• Tertullian. On the Resurrection of the Flesh. Chapter 18.
  Quote: “So that it is the flesh which falls by death; and accordingly it derives its name, cadaver, from cadendo.”