Corpus
[KOR-pəs]
Part of speech: noun
Origin: Latin, early 18th century
1.
A collection of written texts, especially the entire works of a particular author or a body of writing on a particular subject.
2.
(Anatomy) The main body or mass of a structure.
Examples of Corpus in a sentence
"I own the corpus of my two favorite authors, Virginia Woolf and Henry James."
"We need to examine the corpus for a proper diagnosis."
About Corpus
Corpus is Latin for "the body," and it was used in Middle English to refer to the body of a human or animal in an anatomical sense. Today, "corpus" is used in the humanities to refer to the entire body of work from one author, or on a particular subject.
Did you Know?
Lexicographers (people who study words and write the dictionary) call all of the words in the dictionary the "corpus." There are different corpuses for different dictionaries. If you pick up a copy of Merriam-Webster versus the Oxford English Dictionary, the corpus will vary slightly between the two.
