Definition of "body"

Physical frame.

1. The physical structure of a human or animal seen as one single organism.  quotations  examples

   Quotations

   • If the foot shall say, Because I am not the hand, I am not of the body: is it therefore not of the body?And if the eare shall say, Because I am not the eye, I am not of the body: is it therefore not of the body?If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where were the smelling?But now hath God set the members, euery one of them in the body, as it hath pleased him.And if they were all one member, where were the body?But now are they many members, yet but one body.

     1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], 1 Corinthians 12:15–20

2. The fleshly or corporeal nature of a human, as opposed to the spirit or soul.  examples

3. A corpse.  examples

4. (archaic or informal except in compounds) A person.  quotations

   Quotations

   • 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 […]

     1749, Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, volumes (please specify |volume=I to VI), London: A[ndrew] Millar, […]

   • Sometime I've set right down and eat WITH him. But you needn't tell that. A body's got to do things when he's awful hungry he wouldn't want to do as a steady thing.

     1876, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], chapter 28, in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Hartford, Conn.: The American Publishing Company

   • “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

5. (sociology) A human being, regarded as marginalized or oppressed.  quotations

   Quotations

   • 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

Main section.

1. The torso, the main structure of a human or animal frame excluding the extremities (limbs, head, tail).  examples

2. The largest or most important part of anything, as distinct from its appendages or accessories.  examples

3. (archaic) The section of a dress extending from the neck to the waist, excluding the arms.

4. The content of a letter, message, or other printed or electronic document, as distinct from signatures, salutations, headers, and so on.  examples

Coherent group.

1. A group of people having a common purpose or opinion; a mass.  examples

2. An organisation, company or other authoritative group.  examples

3. A unified collection of details, knowledge or information.  examples

Material entity.

1. Any physical object or material thing.  examples

2. (uncountable) Substance; physical presence.  quotations  examples

   Quotations

   • The voice had an extraordinary sadness. Pure from all body, pure from all passion, going out into the world, solitary, unanswered, breaking against rocks—so it sounded.

     1922 October 26, Virginia Woolf, chapter 1, in Jacob’s Room, Richmond, London: […] Leonard & Virginia Woolf at the Hogarth Press; republished London: The Hogarth Press, 1960,

3. (uncountable) Comparative viscosity, solidity or substance (in wine, colours etc.).  examples

4. An agglomeration of some substance, especially one that would be otherwise uncountable.  quotations  examples

   Quotations

   • 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 […]

     1806 June 26, 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.

     2012 March 19, 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.

     2018, VOA Learning English > China's Melting Glacier Brings Visitors, Adds to Climate Concerns‎

(printing) The shank of a type, or the depth of the shank (by which the size is indicated).  quotations  examples

(geometry) A three-dimensional object, such as a cube or cone.  examples

(transitive, often with forth) To give body or shape to something.  quotations  examples

To construct the bodywork of a car.  examples

(transitive) To embody.  quotations  examples

(transitive, slang, African-American Vernacular) To murder someone.

1. (by extension) To utterly defeat someone.  quotations  examples

   Quotations

   • I keep getting bodied by kids half my age.

     2023, “Gaming at 24”, in hyperx‎ (comic)