corpses

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of corpse.

   Rescue teams recovered dozens of corpses from the rubble after the earthquake.

   The corpses of several seals washed up along the coast after the storm.

   Note

   The plural is the regular one, and it reaches past human dead to animals: the corpses of seals on a beach. Even so, corpses on its own makes most readers picture people, so for animals carcasses is often the clearer word. An archaic, sometimes derogatory use applied the word to living bodies too, a sneer rather than a description.

2. 2
   verbslang

   Third-person singular simple present of corpse.

   Whenever the lead forgets a line, the whole cast waits to see who corpses first.

   He pulls a face at her in the final act and nearly always corpses her.

   Note

   This is theater slang with nothing to do with dead bodies, though it shares a spelling with the plural noun. A performer who corpses breaks into uncontrollable laughter during a show; with an object it means setting a fellow actor off, as in he corpses her every night. Being slang, it belongs to talk among performers rather than formal prose.

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