body
/ˈbɒdi
/noun (plural bodies)
1The physical structure, including the bones, flesh, and organs, of a person or an animal: it’s important to keep your body in good condition...
- This network has been borrowed many times in the course of evolution to build new structures in animal bodies.
- While human bodies have skeletons of bones, our cells have a framework made of a filamentous network.
- Most of us have been taught to think of our body as a physical structure, isolated from everything else.
Synonyms
anatomy, figure, frame, form, shape, build, physique, framework, skeleton, bones, flesh and bones
informal bod
rare corse, soma
1.1The trunk apart from the head and the limbs: the blow almost severed his head from his body...
- Occasionally heads sit oddly on their bodies, and swollen limbs meet their trunks awkwardly.
- Secondary infection may occur as a result of bites being scratched, although bites may also become infected by the bacteria carried on the bodies or limbs of the lice or in their faeces.
- Hundreds of limbs protruded from its body and two large black wings were folded on its back.
Synonyms
torso, trunk, chest, stomach, middle
1.2A corpse: they found his body washed up on the beach...
- I realized today that, all week, I've been referring to the dead I've seen as bodies and corpses.
- Then for the next 8 hours during the second stage I evacuated corpses or dead bodies.
- You know, the case is more complicated than her body washing up a mile from his boat.
Synonyms
corpse, dead body, cadaver, carcass, skeleton, remains, relics
informal stiff
1.3 [mass noun] The physical and mortal aspect of a person as opposed to the soul or spirit: we’re together in body and spirit...
- It is their desire that the message of their music would bring New Life to your spirit, soul and body.
- It taught me how to work always to bring mind and body and spirit together and the beauty of music.
- It is a non-human movement that perhaps can awaken a movement within the human spirit and body.
1.4 informal A person’s body regarded as an object of sexual desire: he was just after her body...
- Finally we might be able to explore our thoughts, our desires, our bodies, and be open about it too.
- He was finally bored with her youthful prettiness and desired her body no longer.
1.5 informal, dated A person of a specified type: a motherly body...
- There were two main bodies interested, one a builder from Castlebar, the other in the same trade from Westport.
2The main section of a motor vehicle or aircraft: the factory had produced more car bodies than needed the body of the aircraft was filled with smoke...
- I saw a portion of the engine and the wing separate from the main body of the aircraft.
- They loaded the bodies on to military aircraft to take home to their families.
- However, within the Faraday cage of a Peugeot 307 car body, it doesn't perform.
Synonyms
bodywork, hull, fuselage, outer casing
3The main or central part of something, especially a building or text: the main body of the house was built in 1625...
- Plenty of them are either next door to the landlord or, indeed, within the body of the main house itself.
- Curiously, there is no attempt to integrate these points into the main body of the text.
- Does the main body of text immediately follow the title, or does it begin on the next page?
Synonyms
main part, principal part, central part, core, heart, hub, nub, kernel
3.1The part of an email containing the message, as opposed to information such as the subject and sender. Compare with header (sense 4). put your name, address, and daytime phone number in the email’s body...
- Comments must be contained in the body of the message; do not send attached files.
- Place your cursor in the body of your email message
- Submit your materials as plain text (ASCII) or in rich text format in the body of an e-mail message.
4A large amount or collection of something: a rich body of Canadian folklore large bodies of seawater...
- There are some which have a general and almost constant operation upon the collective bodies of society.
- The collection of such large bodies of data limits the social and biological variables that can be recorded.
- A vast body of evidence from previously unavailable sources has been collected.
Synonyms
expanse, mass, area, stretch, region, tract, breadth, sweep, extent, aggregate, accumulation, concretion, accretion
quantity, amount, volume, collection, proportion, mass, corpus
4.1An organized group of people with a common purpose or function: a regulatory body international bodies of experts...
- The Sporting Trust is an independent body that organises sporting functions to raise money for cancer.
- The state has to realise the corporate bodies cannot function like charitable organisations.
- He holds positions in five public bodies and organisations, and owns a flat in Sha Tin held under his wife's name.
Synonyms
majority, preponderance, greater part, major part, main part, best part, better part, lion's share, bulk, mass, generality
association, organization, group, grouping, party, band, company, society, club, circle, fellowship, partnership, fraternity, syndicate, guild, federation, confederation, bloc, corporation, contingent, coterie, clique
5 [often with adjective] technical A material object: the path taken by the falling body...
- Apples fall to the ground; so do material objects and unsupported bodies.
- At this point Aristotle observes that substances - material bodies - are in a sense composite.
- One contains constrained bodies that fall slowly, the other pendulums that repeat their motions again and again.
Synonyms
object, entity, item, piece of matter
6 [mass noun] A full or substantial quality of flavour in wine: best of all, this wine has body and finish...
- The wine itself is rather fuller in body and more alcoholic than Chianti, reflecting its warmer production zone.
- But it's the structure and body of this wine that really make it stand out.
- They describe the teas in terms of light, medium, and full body as well as in terms of taste.
6.1Fullness or thickness of a person’s hair: restructuring formulations help to add body...
- It will also remove a great deal of the fullness and the body from the hair giving it a sleeker look.
Synonyms
fullness, solidity, density, thickness, firmness, substance, mass;
shape, structure
7British A woman’s close-fitting stretch garment for the upper body, fastening at the crotch.
8(In pottery) a clay used for making the main part of ceramic ware, as distinct from a glaze.In Siraj's ceramics, this body is in clay, bearing several forms and colours within it....
- Transfer printing permitted the rapid and exact replication of detailed designs on a variety of ceramic bodies.
- The ceramics section has dealt with processes for clay body formulation for various uses.
verb (bodies, bodying, bodied) [with object]
1 (body something forth) formal Give material form to something abstract: he bodied forth the traditional Prussian remedy for all ills...
- He concludes that we should regard the individual as ‘organism plus environment’ and that the creation and maintenance of a life project is foremost a process of ‘bodying it forth’ in the multi-relational emergence of life.
- Looking out over the city I could contain it all, contain it and body it forth.
- It would seem that he had a certain experience with regard to the nature of matter and bodied it forth in the idiom and thought images of the age in which he had grown up.
2Build the bodywork of (a motor vehicle): an era when automobiles were bodied over wooden frames...
- It is a hand-built fiberglass bodied proof-of-concept car, designed to signal DC's intended production methods.
- Meanwhile, the 10,000 hp, jet powered, saloon bodied car, Fireforce will make a return appearance at the base.
- This was a most notable motorcar and was the first fibreglass bodied car.
Phrases
body and soul
in a body
keep body and soul together
over my dead body
Origin
Old English bodig, of unknown origin.
bodice from mid 16th century:
The original form of bodice was bodies, the plural of body (Old English). This referred to an item of clothing for the upper body from the mid 16th century, when the pronunciation of bodies would have been like that of bodice. A similar thing happened with dice, which is in origin the plural of die. A bodice ripper is a sexy romantic novel with a historical setting, often having a cover featuring a woman with revealingly torn clothes swooning in the arms of a masterful man. The term was not used until the start of the 1980s.