body

Etymology

From Middle English bodi, bodiȝ, from Old English bodiġ (“body, trunk, chest, torso, height, stature”), from Proto-West Germanic *bodag (“body, trunk”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰewdʰ- (“to be awake, observe”). Cognate with Old High German botah (whence Swabian Bottich (“body, torso”)).

noun

1. Physical frame.
   1. The physical structure of a human or animal seen as one single organism.
      I saw them walking from a distance, their bodies strangely angular in the dawn light.
   2. The fleshly or corporeal nature of a human, as opposed to the spirit or soul.
      The body is driven by desires, but the soul is at peace.
   3. A corpse.
      Her body was found at four o'clock, just two hours after the murder.
   4. (archaic or informal except in compounds) A person.
      Indeed, if it belonged to a poor body, it would be another thing; but so great a lady, to be sure, can never want it […] Folio Society 1973, page 463
      “Well,” I says, “I cal'late a body could get used to Tophet if he stayed there long enough.” ¶ She flared up; the least mite of a slam at Doctor Wool was enough to set her going. 1913, Joseph C. Lincoln, chapter 5, in Mr. Pratt's Patients
      What's a body gotta do to get a drink around here?
   5. (sociology) A human being, regarded as marginalized or oppressed.
      This, of course, was not about the State, but it was certainly an invasion: black bodies acting out in a public domain circumscribed by a racist culture. The Garvey movement presents an example of black bodies transgressing racialized spatial boundaries. 1999, Devon Carbado, Black Men on Race, Gender, and Sexuality: A Critical Reader, page 87
      In doing so, Haritaworn also rethinks the marginality of transgender bodies and practices in queer movements and spaces. 2012, Trystan T. Cotten, Transgender Migrations, page 3
      As the title suggests, this project is particularly interested in how race intersects with reproductive technologies—how brown bodies are deployed in the creation of white babies. 2016, Laura Harrison, Brown Bodies, White Babies, page 5
2. Main section.
   1. The torso, the main structure of a human or animal frame excluding the extremities (limbs, head, tail).
      The boxer took a blow to the body.
   2. The largest or most important part of anything, as distinct from its appendages or accessories.
      The bumpers and front tyres were ruined, but the body of the car was in remarkable shape.
   3. (archaic) The section of a dress extending from the neck to the waist, excluding the arms.
      Penny was in the scullery, pressing the body of her new dress.
   4. The content of a letter, message, or other printed or electronic document, as distinct from signatures, salutations, headers, and so on.
   5. (programming) The code of a subroutine, contrasted to its signature and parameters.
      In many programming languages, the method body is enclosed in braces.
   6. (architecture, of a church) nave.
3. Coherent group.
   1. A group of people having a common purpose or opinion; a mass.
      I was escorted from the building by a body of armed security guards.
   2. An organisation, company or other authoritative group.
      The local train operating company is the managing body for this section of track.
   3. A unified collection of details, knowledge or information.
      We have now amassed a body of evidence which points to one conclusion.
4. Material entity.
   1. Any physical object or material thing.
      All bodies are held together by internal forces.
   2. (uncountable) Substance; physical presence.
      We have given body to what was just a vague idea.
   3. (uncountable) Comparative viscosity, solidity or substance (in wine, colours etc.).
      The red wine, sadly, lacked body.
   4. An agglomeration of some substance, especially one that would be otherwise uncountable.
      In a gentle breeze, the whole body of air, as far as the breeze extends, moves at the rate of seven or eight miles an hour; in a high wind, at the rate of seventy, eighty, or an hundred miles an hour […] June 26 1806, Thomas Paine, “The cause of Yellow Fever and the means of preventing it, in places not yet infected with it, addressed to the Board of Health in America”, in The political and miscellaneous works of Thomas Paine, page 179
      Using three-dimensional seismic and well data from the northern North Sea, we describe a large (10 km³) body of sand and interpret it as extrusive. March 19 2012, Helge Løseth, Nuno Rodrigues, Peter R. Cobbold, “World's largest extrusive body of sand?”, in Geology, volume 40, number 5
      The huge body of ice is in the southeastern edge of a Central Asian region called the Third Pole. File:The huge body of ice is in the southeastern edge.ogg 2018, VOA Learning English > China's Melting Glacier Brings Visitors, Adds to Climate Concerns
      The English Channel is a body of water lying between Great Britain and France.
5. (printing) The shank of a type, or the depth of the shank (by which the size is indicated).
   a nonpareil face on an agate body
   The stemless notes could have been cast on a body as short as 4 mm but were probably cast on bodies of the standard 14 mm size for ease of composition. 1992, Mary Kay Duggan, Italian Music Incunabula: Printers and Type, page 99
6. (geometry) A three-dimensional object, such as a cube or cone.

verb

1. To give body or shape to something.
   The drama of the storehouse on earth has its counterpart in Heaven, and if we accept the insights of both Jacobsen and von Dechend, we can see that the myth is bodying forth a principle which will later be expressed in the Hermetic axiom, "As above, so below." In fact, it is precisely this relationship between above and below that the myth explores. 1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, London: Rider/Hutchinson & Co., page 175
2. To construct the bodywork of a car.
3. (transitive) To embody.
   I don't say, one bodies the other / One's spiritual truth; / But I do say it's hard to lose either, / When you have both. 1955, Philip Larkin, Toads
4. (transitive, slang, African-American Vernacular) To murder someone.
   1. (by extension) To utterly defeat someone.
      I keep getting bodied by kids half my age. 2023, “Gaming at 24”, in hyperx (comic)